Abdication: A Novel (45 page)

Their hands remained linked as they made their way out of the park and towards the underground. They continued to talk. They promised each other that they would write to Nishy, the man who had made their mother so happy. And they would write to Bertha and to Tom to thank them for their courageous selflessness. And they pledged to one another that if they ever saw Duncan again they would confront him together, fearlessly.

They returned home early that evening from the Crystal Palace exhausted. A few hours later the famous building was almost completely destroyed by fire. The colossal blaze stained the whole sky red and was rumoured to have started with a smouldering cigarette thrown carelessly into a dusty grating.
The Times
reported how it had been possible to read newsprint at several hundred yards distance so bright were the flames. Soot-blackened goldfish had been seen swimming in a fountain filled with the fallen debris of stone effigies of British kings. Days later, smoke had continued to swirl around the two central water towers that had miraculously escaped intact. Rachel swore that she had actually heard the roof of the Egyptian Hall fall in.

“The man on the wireless said the noise of the crash had travelled five miles. And Mrs. Cohen said her Benjamin saw the glow from down at the coast. Are you listening to me, Simon?”

But Simon was listening to the news on the wireless.

“I don’t know about buildings,” he replied, “but it looks like something else is about to go up in flames.”

May said nothing to the Greenfelds or the Castors about the revelations contained within her mother’s letter. The news of her mother’s love affair made her long more than anything to talk to Julian but she did not know when her chance would come. He had sent her a postcard to say he had arrived safely in Paris and that he would write again when he reached Spain. Since then she had heard nothing more. She was grateful that her work for Sir Philip had become even more demanding. There were more letters and reports to type and more telephone calls to make, to receive and to field than she could remember. And the secretarial work had somehow to be squeezed in between driving to and from the relentless number of meetings, lunches and dinners that packed Sir Philip’s every waking hour. At least May had no time yet to dwell either on the momentous discovery about her parentage, or on Julian’s silence.

Sometimes she dropped Sir Philip off at Number 10, sometimes she waited late into the night outside the Houses of Parliament until he emerged looking ever more anxious. The story of “the king’s matter” finally reached the daily newspapers on Thursday 3 December, triggered by a public remark from a voluble cleric.

The Bishop of Bradford had put a question to the diocesan conference about whether the king had a comprehensive understanding of the full spiritual significance of the upcoming coronation. The British press, silent for so long over the king’s relationship with Mrs. Simpson, allowed themselves to interpret the Bishop’s doubts as their long-awaited licence to reveal the whole story.

Each morning for a week Sir Philip had sat in the front seat of the car either on the way to the House of Commons or to Fort Belvedere, reading
The Times
aloud as May drove him through the streets of London
and the lanes of Berkshire. Under a headline entitled “King and Monarchy,”
The Times
revealed how parts of the foreign press were “predicting a marriage incompatible with the throne.” The prime minister had not yet commented publicly although the surprisingly modest prime ministerial car was often parked in the Fort driveway during those few frenetic days. On Friday 4 December, under another headline, “A King’s Marriage,”
The Times
reported that Mr. Baldwin had assured the House that “no constitutional difficulty exists at present” and a couple of days later two lines at last gave some information concerning the woman at the centre of the whole drama.

“Mrs. Simpson left England on Thursday night. It is believed her destination is Cannes.”

On Sunday May was again given the day off and went to the pictures with Rachel. Both women joined the cinema audience as they jumped to their feet and sung the national anthem louder than ever followed by a rousing round of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

Mrs. Simpson had released a personal statement to the press.

“Mrs. Simpson is willing to withdraw forthwith from a situation that has been rendered both unhappy and untenable,” it read.

“Well I never. The cheek of it!” Rachel fumed. “She might have thought of that before, Simon, don’t you think? What must his mother be feeling now? It’s Queen Mary who I feel sorry for. Queen or no queen, she’s a mother, and must be as worried as any of us would be.”

On each successive day of the following week members of parliament packed the chamber in anticipation of a statement from Stanley Baldwin. Each day they returned home no wiser about the king’s final decision. Sir Philip and Mr. Monckton were only two of the advisors who hurried through the doors of the Fort, Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and 10 Downing Street. Chauffeurs in the employ of the archbishop of Canterbury; the prime minister; Mr. Neville Chamberlain, the chancellor; Mr. Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary;
and Mr. John Simon, the home secretary, gathered in servants’ halls and in car parks and in the street with the drivers working for Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. Duff Cooper and Sir Oswald Mosley.

May was well known to most of these drivers. During the preceding eleven months she had spent long hours in their company, waiting for Sir Philip and their employers to conclude meetings on which major national decisions depended. If at first these hard-talking, tobacco-inhaling chauffeurs had shown surprise at a woman’s inclusion among their number, they, like the taxi drivers, had quickly come to respect her for her professionalism and secretly to admire her for her comeliness. Indeed, there was more curiosity in Sir Oswald’s driver than in May. Over packets of Woodbines and cups of tea the man who had driven the leader of the British fascists to the march at Cable Street and once to Cuckmere Park was asked to justify his presence within this distinguished group.

“From what I hear on my side of the glass screen,” he explained, “Mr. Baldwin thinks Sir Oswald could help in making the king see sense about his fancy woman. And he’s not all bad, Sir Oswald, you know. He has ideas that some people find appealing. Take my missus for example. She says Mosley wants to give women a good deal, what with offering them the same party member rights as a man. Her women friends agree with her that Sir Oswald talks sense. Can’t see it myself,” he added. “But a job’s a job, isn’t it?”

The other drivers muttered their support for Mosley’s inclusion in the king’s team of advisors. All the chauffeurs were united in their fear that the monarchy was on the verge of collapse and when they were joined late in the proceedings by the driver employed by the Duke of York they all speculated on the role
his
boss might be playing in a few days’ time.

On Thursday 10 December Sir Philip climbed wearily into the front seat of the blue Rolls-Royce. As May pulled away from the kerb Sir
Philip took off his hat and buried his head in his hands. The car crossed over Westminster Bridge, the murky grey water beneath running at speed with the turning tide and Sir Philip tugged his fingers through his long uncombed hair. Eventually he spoke.

“Thank God it is all over. Edward VIII has signed the documents and Mr. Baldwin read us the statement this afternoon. By tomorrow Britain will have a new king, and you and I will deserve a rest.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
OUR

S
am was on his way home after a pint with Nat in the Queen’s Arms. He was glad it was a Friday and was looking forward to spending the weekend with his sister and their cousins, especially Nat. Sam had come to regard Nat with the affection and trust worthy of brother.

The pub had been packed with regulars, and Danny, Bethnal Green’s most royalist publican, had greeted the cousins with his usual friendly welcome.

“I would be glad of a bit of advice from you two,” he announced as he filled two glasses to the brim with his home-brewed beer. “I’ve got a problem,” he said, gesturing behind him. “I want to know which one of them I should put in pride of place?”

The same three photographs still leant against a collection of dusty bottles of liquor at the back of the bar as they had done since the beginning of the year, Queen Mary in her pearls sat next to George V on his coronation day and they both looked out from their carriage on last year’s triumphant jubilee tour of London. Danny’s wife, Ruth, had put her jubilee embroidery kit beside the picture of George V. Two lines had been stitched onto the outside of the tapestry case:

Prince of Sportsmen, brilliant shot
,

But happiest aboard his yacht
.

A fourth photograph had been added to the collection since Nat last looked, showing a grinning Edward VIII, a much-reproduced image taken when the king was the Prince of Wales, a cigarette stuck jauntily in one side of his mouth.

“Now, do I dare put up the new one, is what I am wondering?” By now Danny was laughing. “I mean, you never know who is coming next. George and Mary to start with; then Edward, here for a moment and then gone in a blink of an eye; and now Albert. What a merry-go-round it has all been, hasn’t it Nat?”

Nat and Sam drank their first pint at the bar and discussed with Danny the shocking news of the abdication; it was only when they ordered the second pint that Sam suggested they go to a quieter table in the corner. He wanted to talk to Nat alone. Privy as he already was to the knowledge of May’s parentage, Nat did not show any surprise when Sam outlined the contents of the letter sent by Bertha. With considerable relief Nat now confessed how, on his last visit to his mother in Holloway Prison, Gladys had sworn him to secrecy about an exotic Indian who had once loved her sister. Although Gladys was horribly weak from her prolonged lack of food, she was determined that the family secret should not die with her. Despite his young age, Nat had understood the depth of love his mother held for her sister. When he turned fourteen, he had begun to develop a curiosity in the workings of the adult world and had written to his aunt Edith in Barbados, asking her to tell him something of those circumstances which his mother had hinted at during her final days. Edith’s reply, possibly written out of the relief of finally sharing her secret, contained the entire story of her love affair with Nishy. By return of post, Nat promised that if ever she and her children needed help, he would do all he could to supply it, for his mother’s sake.

“There are two things I want to say,” Sam began with a new confidence that was not lost on Nat. “The first is that I know you’re going to
be a wonderful dad to Joshua and I envy him. And secondly,” and here Sam’s voice wavered for a moment, “you are the best cousin May and I could ever have had.”

As they left the pub, both men walked for a while in silence, the younger slighter blond figure contrasting with the elder, robustly built and dark-haired. As they turned the corner to Oak Street Sam stopped in front of the war memorial.

“I remember how you said these men had done their duty,” he said, almost shyly. “I think we could all learn a lesson from them, don’t you?”

Nat linked his arm through Sam’s and together they walked the short distance to number 52.

“Come in, come in, Shalom Shabbat,” Rachel said, bustling them into the kitchen. The table was laid for the Sabbath feast. “We are having our meal punctually, Nat, as we all want to hear the king, that’s the latest old king, if you see what I mean. He is going to be making a speech on the wireless at ten o’clock tonight.”

Rachel had noticed the newspaper in Nat’s hand. “What have you got there? More terrible news, I suppose?” she asked.

“I made an exception and bought myself today’s edition,” Nat told her. “Couldn’t wait for tomorrow. Take a look.”

Rachel, Simon, Sam and May crowded round the paper.

“Well, I never,” Rachel said, sighing loudly. “I mean seeing it written down there like that. He really is going. Makes you think, doesn’t it? I mean who can we trust, Nat, I’m asking you?”

“I agree with you,” Nat said. “It’s hard to believe that a man who seemed to care so much about this country, our country, I should say, has gone and abandoned us. Love is one thing, I know, but perhaps it should sometimes take second place for kings.”