Abdication: A Novel (38 page)

Mr. Hooch had been less outraged although equally captivated by speculation over the goings-on in the gardener’s cottage.

“Whoever would have guessed it?” he said to May, with the jolly twinkle he reserved exclusively for her. “Nothing more than a couple of girl pansies, aren’t they? Right in the middle of our village! I say! But no harm done, eh?” he chuckled. “It’s the aftereffects of that bloody war again, excuse my language. Not enough of us decent men left to go round are there? Does funny things to women, war does.”

May was coming to the end of her story. “When Sir Philip came back from Chequers he gathered us all (except Vera, of course) in the drawing room and asked us to keep the incident to ourselves, and to realise what a blessing it was that Lady Joan knew nothing about it. He asked me privately to mark ‘return to sender’ on all the envelopes that came addressed to him in green ink and give them back to the postman. He had a word with Vera too. The beauty of the garden is what persuaded him not to sack her, although he was very keen to stress to all of us that she had not done anything wrong. She even offered to find a good home for that poor canary. And Mr. Hooch is more pleased than anyone that Vera is staying because he says she grows the best lettuces in Sussex.”

May was reluctant to finish her account of the recent weeks at Cuckmere. As long as she kept talking, she told herself, there would be no chance for Julian to tell her how happy he had been with Lottie in Berlin. She watched his tweedy back as he waited at the bar for Danny to refill their beer glasses.

“I’ve got some good news to tell you,” he said at last, putting his glass down on the table with a flourish. “I have decided to train for the law and become a barrister. An excellent crammer has offered me a place to study for the Bar exams starting in September. And, even better, I have been accepted as a student at the Middle Temple. And the best thing of all is that now that I have escaped from the manicured clutches of Lottie I will have all the time in the world to concentrate on the bar exams.”

“I am sorry. What did you just say?” May asked him.

“Lottie. Charlotte. You know? Well, when I left Berlin she decided to stay on for a bit and Rupert was decent enough to say he would drive her home so at the moment I am fancy-free. And I desperately need someone to come with me to the movies. You wouldn’t consider being that someone would you?” He was smiling as he asked May the question.

May nodded back at him.

“Oh good, good, good,” he said. “Because the truth is that not a single day has passed over the last month without me thinking about you.”

May did not trust herself to reply.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

J
ulian wanted to know whether May would be staying down at Cuckmere during the coming weekend. He was intending to visit Joan. At least, that was the reason he gave. But May was thinking of returning to Oak Street as Sarah’s baby was due so soon. Sir Philip confirmed the decision for her as soon as he sat down at his desk. His frequent absences from Cuckmere during the past few months meant that the old cigar smell was less evident than it had once been. Nearly a year had passed since May had first sat in this room, her hair falling all over her face, anxious to give a good first impression at her interview. But today it was Sir Philip who looked anxious.

“Lady Joan?” May asked quietly.

“No, my dear, another matter I am afraid. And it concerns you.” He put the tips of his fingers together, his hands forming an airy cage, and leant forward on both elbows. “Your cousins are Jewish, are they not?”

May nodded.

“I think you should know that there is a real possibility that the Blackshirt march planned for next Sunday might make its way to Cable Street and through the streets of Bethnal Green. And against the advice of the police, the government has refused to ban the march. I would far rather you stayed here in the safety of the countryside.”

Sir Philip could see an objection forming on May’s face before she even began to speak.

“Thank you so much, sir, but I would feel very worried if I wasn’t at home looking after my family in Oak Street. And my cousin is about to have her baby so I think they need me there.”

“Of course. I am not at all surprised by your response,” Sir Phillip said, looking at May with affection. “They will value your calming presence, May. But whatever happens I urge you to stay inside throughout the weekend. It is hard to overestimate the lengths to which anti-Semitic feeling will go. I will tell you in confidence that six thousand policemen as well as the entire mounted force are going to be out on the East End streets on Sunday. I think that shows you that people are frightened and that things could get nasty.”

When May reached Oak Street the atmosphere was more one of determination than fear. The threat to the neighbourhood had diverted Rachel from her interest in May’s romantic hopes as well as her persistent suspicion that May and Sam were trying to keep from her some enthralling piece of information about the king’s love life. Here instead was the prospect of a real-life drama on Rachel’s own doorstep.

As a precaution, Nat had positioned his truncheon directly inside the front door. Some of the locals had armed themselves with catapults and knuckle-dusters and one of the fatherless children next door had shown Nat an evil-looking homemade instrument fashioned from a torn-off piece of iron grating. The weapon was nothing in viciousness, however, compared with the ingenuity of the Cyprus Street barber who had tied a piece of string to a potato embedded with several of his brand-new razor blades.

At breakfast that morning Simon had read aloud from
The Jewish
Chronicle
. “Jews are urgently warned to keep away from the route of the Blackshirt march.”

However, the generally accepted information—gathered from the anti-march organisers, the information in the
Daily Worker
, Nat’s secondhand copy of
The Times
and pamphlets that had been pushed through letterboxes—as good as confirmed there would be no trouble anywhere near Oak Street itself. It was rumoured that the demonstrators condemning the actions of the Blackshirts would include a hundred thousand anti-fascists, activists against the Spanish Civil War, and a good number of people who were joining in for “the hell of it.” The plan was to congregate at Aldgate, a couple of miles from the Greenfelds’ home. All over the East End the same notice written in chalk had appeared on pavements and walls.

“Everybody to Aldgate on 4 October 1:00 p.m.”

Early on Sunday morning Sarah announced to her mother that she was feeling cooped up. There was little likelihood of the baby appearing for several days yet, and Sarah always went out on a Sunday. This Sunday was no different. She was going for a stroll.

At first Rachel had been adamant that Sarah was going nowhere. “Over my dead body you are going out in your condition, my girl,” she had said through a mouthful of one of next door’s eggs. But Sarah had inherited her mother’s obstinacy and was hearing none of these objections.

“If you must know I am going to Gardiner’s to buy Nat a tie for when he becomes a father,” she replied. “You can come with me or stay put, it’s up to you, Mum.”

Gardiner’s department store was known by everyone in the East End as “the Harrods of the East,” and no other shop would be good enough for Nat’s paternal tie.

“Whatever will Nat say if anything happens to you Sarah? Tell me that?” Rachel asked, pouring herself a cup of tea from the pot.

“Nat and Dad do not need to know where I am going. There is a sale on at Gardiner’s and a special Sunday opening for two hours this morning. I can be up there by ten and be back home by after eleven.”

Rachel sipped her tea. She could not allow her daughter to go out on her own but realised there was no dissuading her from abandoning the expedition. Rachel was a woman generally possessed of profound common sense but had never been able to refuse her daughter anything. She tried to convince herself that on a day when the perils of being Jewish, female and pregnant were at their most heightened, her presence would be protection enough.

Standing up Rachel reached for her coat. “Right, my girl. We better get going then if we are to be back before any trouble starts.”

Sarah stood up and hugged her mother.

As far as Simon and Nat were concerned the two women were going round the corner to Victoria Park. What with the days drawing in and the October winds about to sharpen their bite, mother and daughter planned to take advantage of an unusually balmy autumn day. Even so, Nat did his best to forbid them both from going. “You tell them, Simon, there is madness in the air.” But neither woman paid him any attention.

“My advice is to give up on them, Nat,” Simon said. “Ill-advised is a man who challenges the will of a determined wife,” he said, returning to the betting pages of the newspaper. But Nat was not yet ready for defeat, warning Rachel and Sarah that he was prepared to restrain them physically from leaving the house.

“Look here,” Rachel said pulling on her gloves, “I’m telling you straight, Nat, you must not worry about us getting caught up in this march. It’s not going to come within miles of us, and anyway nothing is supposed to start till this afternoon, two o’clock at the earliest. Let the poor girl have a break, for pity’s sake. Your wife is about to spend the rest of her days tethered to a pram. God in heaven, Nat, do you
honestly think that I, Rachel, her mother, a future
grandmother
, no less, am going to let Sarah come to any harm?”

“Well, make sure you are back by noon, that’s all I am asking,” Nat said with a sigh, smiling at the familiar obstinacy of his mother-in-law as, putting on a convincing show of being affronted, Rachel ushered her swollen daughter out into the street.

While the women were out Simon sat in the parlour, listening to the news bulletins on the wireless, the sound turned up at deafening volume,
The Jewish Chronicle
lying open across his large stomach. Nat had finished catching up with yesterday’s
Times
, collected first thing from his butler friend, even though it had been a Sunday, and made himself and his father-in-law a hefty chicken sandwich, which they ate on their laps, before falling into a Sunday afternoon doze.

“Things don’t sound too good up at Aldgate,” Simon said a while later, gesturing towards the wireless. “Shouldn’t Rachel and Sarah be back by now?”

Both men looked at each other, all of a sudden concerned. But just then there was a double rap at the front door and a young man in glasses with white-blond hair stood there, a summery linen cap in his hand and a striped college scarf round his neck.

“I am so sorry to call without any warning. My name is Julian Richardson. I am a friend of May Thomas. I do hope I have got the right number?”

For a moment Nat quite forgot about Rachel and Sarah as he put out his hand to Julian in greeting. “Delighted to meet you,” he said. “Really delighted. Do come in. May is upstairs. I’ll fetch her at once.”

“I wondered if she might want to come up and join me at the march,” Julian explained.

Nat hesitated on his way up the stairs. “The march? Are you planning on going up to Aldgate?”

“Yes I am. And I thought May might want to come with me.”

On hearing voices, May had already begun to make her way downstairs, her surprise at seeing Julian lighting up her face.

“I thought it would be Sarah and Rachel back from the park. You are always turning up when I least expect you,” she said, beaming at him. “Nat, this is Julian. Nat’s my cousin. You know.”

But Nat was looking worried. “My wife and her mother are somewhere out in the streets. I was expecting them home an hour ago.”

May turned to him. Her earlier smile had vanished.

“Gardiner’s. They’ve gone to Gardiner’s. Up at Aldgate. You’re right, Nat. They should have been back quite a while ago. We must go and find them at once. We can take the bikes. Julian, will you come with me? Nat, you wait here in case they turn up.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Julian followed May out to the back where she was heaving two bicycles out of the shed.

“I know the way,” May shouted to Julian over her shoulder as she began to pedal. “Follow me.”

Gardiner’s was about half an hour’s walk from Oak Street, or ten minutes on a bicycle, perhaps less. May pedalled fast, passing the boarded-up shop fronts at speed and hoping that Julian was close behind.