Winter of the World

‘Oh, my goodness.’ He went to the door, turned the key in the lock, and came back. They embraced again, and he resumed where he had left off. She touched the front of his trousers, found his erect penis through the cloth, and grasped it firmly. He groaned with pleasure.

She pulled away again.

The shadow of anger crossed his face. An unpleasant memory came back to her. Once, when she had made a boy called Theo Coffman take his hand off her breasts, he had turned nasty and called her a prick-teaser. She had never seen that boy again, but the insult had made her feel irrationally ashamed. Momentarily she feared that Boy might be about to make a similar accusation.

Then his face softened and he said: ‘I am dreadfully keen on you, y’know.’

This was her moment. Sink or swim, she told herself. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ she said with a regret that was not greatly exaggerated.

‘Why not?’

‘We’re not even engaged.’

The word hung in the air for a long moment. For a girl to say that was tantamount to a proposal. She watched his face, terrified that he would take fright, turn away, mumble excuses, and ask her to leave.

He said nothing.

‘I want to make you happy,’ she said. ‘But . . .’

‘I do love you, Daisy,’ he said.

That was not enough. She smiled at him and said: ‘Do you?’

‘Ever such a lot.’

She said nothing, but looked at him expectantly.

At last he said: ‘Will you marry me?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, and she kissed him again. With her mouth pressed to his she unbuttoned his fly, burrowed through his underclothing, found his penis, and took it out. The skin was silky and hot. She stroked it, remembering a conversation with the Westhampton twins. ‘You can rub his thing,’ Lindy had said, and Lizzie had added: ‘Until it squirts.’ Daisy was intrigued and excited by the idea of making a man do that. She grasped a bit harder.

Then she remembered Lindy’s next remark. ‘Or you can suck it – they like that best of all.’

She moved her lips away from Boy’s and spoke into his ear. ‘I’ll do anything for my husband,’ she said.

Then she knelt down.

(v)

It was the wedding of the year. Daisy and Boy were married at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, on Saturday 3 October 1936. Daisy was disappointed it was not Westminster Abbey, but she was told that was for the royal family only.

Coco Chanel made her wedding dress. Depression fashion was for simple lines and minimal extravagance. Daisy’s floor-length bias-cut satin gown had pretty butterfly sleeves and a short train that could be carried by one pageboy.

Her father, Lev Peshkov, came across the Atlantic for the ceremony. Her mother, Olga, agreed for the sake of appearances to sit beside him in church and generally pretend that they were a more or less happily married couple. Daisy’s nightmare was that at some point Marga would show up with Lev’s illegitimate son Greg on her arm; but it did not happen.

The Westhampton twins and May Murray were bridesmaids, and Eva Murray was matron of honour. Boy had been grumpy about Eva’s being half Jewish – he had not wanted to invite her at all – but Daisy had insisted.

She stood in the ancient church, conscious that she looked heartbreakingly beautiful, and happily gave herself to Boy Fitzherbert body and soul.

She signed the register ‘Daisy Fitzherbert, Viscountess Aberowen.’ She had been practising that signature for weeks, carefully tearing the paper into unreadable shreds afterwards. Now she was entitled to it. It was her name.

Processing out of the church, Fitz took Olga’s arm amiably, but Princess Bea put a yard of empty space between herself and Lev.

Princess Bea was not a nice person. She was friendly enough towards Daisy’s mother, and if there was a heavy strain of condescension in her tone, Olga did not notice it, so relations were amiable. But Bea did not like Lev.

Daisy now realized that Lev lacked the veneer of social respectability. He walked and talked, ate and drank, smoked and laughed and scratched like a gangster, and he did not care what people thought. He did what he liked because he was an American millionaire, just as Fitz did what he liked because he was an English earl. Daisy had always known this, but it struck her with extra force when she saw her father with all these upper-class English people, at the wedding breakfast in the grand ballroom of the Dorchester Hotel.

But it did not matter now. She was Lady Aberowen, and that could not be taken away from her.

Nevertheless, Bea’s constant hostility to Lev was an irritant, like a slightly bad smell or a distant buzzing noise, giving Daisy a feeling of dissatisfaction. Sitting beside Lev at the top table, Bea constantly turned slightly away. When he spoke to her she replied briefly without meeting his eye. He seemed not to notice, smiling and drinking champagne, but Daisy, seated on Lev’s other side, knew that he had not failed to read the signs. He was uncouth, not stupid.