Farthing (28 page)

“Should we go to Campion?” Royston asked, expressionlessly.

“Not tonight, sergeant. We want to chase Brown a little more tonight, and we want to sleep in our own beds. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir,” Royston said, pulling up in front of the Old Red Lion. That pub, where Carmichael telephoned

Jack to say he would be home late that evening, knew nothing of Brown. Nor did the Admiral Benbow or the Stonewell Tavern produce any significant results. They had seen Brown for an occasional pint, but it seemed that he was a regular only at the Three Feathers.

At nine o’clock, when the pubs were starting to get rowdy and Royston, having downed seven pints of best bitter, was starting to get rather the worse for wear, they tried the Bonnie Prince Charlie, where the landlord admitted Brown used to drink sometimes when he was in work, denied that he had any connection with the Reds, but recognized the picture. “Oh yes, that’s his bird. Lives at Southend or somewhere. He showed me that snap once.”

“We’re going to Southend tomorrow, sergeant,” Carmichael said, as they went out into the night. It was truly dark now, and the rain was beginning to ease off. “We may be going to Campion afterwards, but

we are definitely going to Southend first.”

“Nearer than Wales, Southend,” Royston said.

“I’ll drive you home, sergeant,” Carmichael said.

“That’s not right, sir,” Royston said, as Carmichael rolled him into the passenger seat. “That’s against nature. World turned upside down. That’s another pub name, pub out by Greenwich, isn’t it?”

“Somewhere like that,” Carmichael said.

“We’ve been in a lot of pubs, but not that one. No reason to think Brown drank at that one. Or Guerin.

Or Thirkie. Or Lady Thirkie. Or Kahn…” he trailed down.

Carmichael threaded his way through the dark and ancient streets of London, almost bare of traffic now except buses and taxicabs. He found the attention he had to give to driving soothing.

Light from streetlamps and the flashing Belisha beacons at zebra crossings reflected from black puddles of standing water. It was late, and soon he would be home.

He pulled up in front of Royston’s house. “Can you get from here to the Yard in the morning?”

he asked, taking Royston’s bags out of the boot, where they had sat since Farthing Junction.

“Yes, sir,” Royston said. “Done it often. Got to see about the bird in Southend tomorrow.”

“I’ll drive myself home. I’ll see you at the Yard first thing,” Carmichael said. He knocked on Royston’s front door.

It was opened by a little girl of about eight who, with her long pale hair and sharp features, bore a strong resemblance to the way Carmichael had always pictured J. M. Barrie’s Wendy. “My Mum’s not—” she began, then recognized them. “Dad!” she said. “Uncle Carmichael! Where have you been? Why didn’t you say you were coming back? Have you brought me anything?”

“Your Dad’s ready for bed, Elvira,” Carmichael said. “And we haven’t brought you anything.

You know we never bring you anything until we finish the case.”

“Rules, Ellie,” Royston said. “You know the rules.”

“I know them,” she said, but her face fell. “When you catch the villains.”

“That’s right. But take this to be going on with, and make sure your Dad gets a good night’s sleep. I need him bright and early in the morning to help me catch villains,” Carmichael said, and handed her half a crown.

“Good night, sir,” Royston said.

“Come on, Dad,” Elvira said, opening the door wide and helping him up the step.

Carmichael waved and drove off into the night, going forward happily towards his own home, his own bed, and Jack waiting in it.

25

What “drastic measures” meant, according to

The Times the next morning, was that they were taking on powers the next thing to dictatorial, in the name of protecting themselves and the country from the Jewish Bolshevik Menace.

The Times rather approved of it, from the tone of their editorial. I wanted to scream, or strangle someone, preferably Mummy. I’d got up early, before David, and gone down to get the paper before he could see it. I took it into the library and curled up on the sofa to read it.

I was so horrified by the whole thing that I read

The Times all through, as if knowing everything would change the import. I read all the boring details, and even skimmed the foreign news. (It seemed the Indians were still agitating for Dominion status, and Kursk had changed hands again. I’m not sure where

Kursk is, but it seems to change hands every thirty minutes on the dot.) Mark was Prime Minister, and all the ministries were therefore his gift. There had been what they call a reshuffle, meaning that all the Cabinet posts were redistributed. Daddy was Chancellor of the Exchequer, which, strictly speaking, he shouldn’t have been. He was a Viscount, so he sat in the Lords, and according to the ancient and unwritten British constitution, the Chancellor was supposed to be an elected member and sit in the Commons. I knew this from hearing people grumbling about it for years. It didn’t make any sense, as such, but it was supposed to be more democratic for the highest ministers of state to be elected. Mark, according to The Times, had decided this was only a custom and one that should be relaxed.

The Times, in its typical ponderous way, said it would be wrong for the Prime Minister to create peerages and grant them to unelected men he wanted to appoint to office, but that it was equally unfair to keep an able man, meaning Daddy, from high office because of an accident of high birth.

Tibs had the Home Office, and Richard Francis had the Foreign Office. Richard and Clarinda had been there at Farthing all weekend, and I don’t think I’ve mentioned them once. That’s probably because they were so absolutely boring. I don’t believe they said a word or uttered an opinion or even dropped a fork the entire time they were at Farthing, any of the times. They are a totally gray couple, complete nonentities. Uncle Dud was given the War Office. Eden, who had been Prime Minister before the party vote, was given the Ministry of Education, which was Sir James’s old job. Hamilton, who everyone had expected to be Prime Minister this time, had the Colonies. Churchill had apparently been offered and turned down Commerce, and it was being taken by Sir Thomas Manningham. So on all down the line, the plums for the Farthing people, and the others either in the wilderness or given the unimportant hard work. That nice Guy Philby who had played croquet with me the weekend before my wedding, was made junior minister at the Foreign Office.

You could say that this was what Eden had done to them, and that this was what Parliamentary democracy was about, and I expect people all through the country were saying that. All the same, I was surprised to see Mark behave so unchivalrously. But none of that was really a problem, it was all backscratching business as usual. Once the Parliamentary Party had chosen Mark, he had the right to appoint who he wanted to the Cabinet.

The bad things were all announced in the speech he’d made in the Commons after he’d made the

“desperate measures” speech on the radio. The identity cards we had all carried ever since the war were to be tightened up, to prevent forgery, and they would carry photographs, which would help the police, and more information, such as religion. Apparently a young Labour hothead called Michael Foot had leapt up at this and said it amounted to persecution of Jews and Catholics, which Mark had answered by sneering that nobody was talking about making anyone wear yellow stars, it was equitable, we would all have our religion marked on our cards.

The Times seemed very concerned about what atheists would put, though I didn’t see why

“atheist” couldn’t just go on the card. I immediately thought that it’s what I’d suggest David say he was—after all, he was racially Jewish, but hardly religious.

Next came Mark’s policy on foreign nationals in Britain, who were causing dissent, unemployment, and trouble. Unless they could find three British sponsors, they were to be repatriated to their original homes.

The Times thought this was quite generous, as it was to be at Britain’s expense. I wonder if they would have thought so if they’d heard about Mrs. Smollett’s original home the way I had the night before.

The Communist Party, along with its newspapers, was to be outright banned. The Labour Party was to be checked by MI5 for secret Communist “sleepers” that might have infiltrated their ranks. The line taken was that the innocent had nothing to fear. Nobody protested in Parliament at this, probably because they were all too afraid, or maybe somebody sat on Bevan and Foot.

Even worse, if you believe anything could be worse, instead of being subject to party votes or votes of confidence, Parliament was to be set on a new footing with a regular general election once every four years, as in America.

The Times wasted much ink in praise of this, and only at the end mentioned that the first such election would, of course, be in four years time, giving Mark what amounted to practically a dictatorship for those years.

“They elected you leader of the Conservative Party, which made you Prime Minister—they didn’t nominate you for God,” I said, bitterly, aloud. Nobody heard me except the white cat,
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who was curled up on the rug in a patch of sunshine. She looked at me inquiringly. The sympathy vote, Daddy had said.

The British care about liberty and justice, David had said, and all the time in London this was being put before the House, who had raised only quibbles. “Reichstag fire,” I said.

David came in. “I wondered where you were,” he said. “Who were you talking to?”

“The cat,” I said.

The cat rolled over, purring, showing her belly.

“She’s disgusted by politics,” I explained.

“Any politics in particular?” David asked, warily.

“British politics this morning, and you might as well see for yourself how bloody it is,” I said, handing him the paper.

While he read it I went over to the window and stared out. It was another lovely day—the sky was that beautiful shade of blue it gets when the rain has washed out all the dust. The huge old ash tree on the edge of the lawn seemed to be reaching heavenwards in coils. The wood looked infinitely inviting. It’s coppiced, of course, oak and hazel, so it’s easy to walk in even off the path, and wonderfully shady. You have to stick to the path if you’re riding, as Daddy and I had done the other day. I could just catch a glimpse of the blue of the lake, reflecting the sky. Would Mummy have allied with a Bolshevik? Could she possibly?

“When I came in, you were saying ‘Reichstag fire,”“ David said, after a while, throwing down The

Times.

“Murdering Sir James,” I said. “Having that Bolshevik shoot at us. It gives them an excuse for all this.”

“It’s funny, I was just thinking that Chaim’s going to say he was right,” David said. He put his arms around me and rested his chin on the top of my head, and we just stood there like that for a little bit, taking comfort.

“If we had to live in another country, where would you want to go?” I asked after a while.

David stiffened, I felt him, every muscle instantly tensed. “Leave England?” he said, with such pain in his voice that I turned around and hugged him fiercely.

“It won’t come to that,” he said after a moment. “If we had to go, well, one of the Dominions—New

Zealand, or Canada perhaps.”

“You wouldn’t want to go to Palestine?” I asked.

“No, nor Brazil either, so don’t be absurd,” he said.

After breakfast, at which we didn’t talk about politics, David went off to telephone his father and I went to talk to Mrs. Simons about the marketing. There wasn’t really anything to say, except that we didn’t know how long we’d be here. I was hoping to ask her to pick up some talcum powder for me in the chemist by the butcher’s, because I’d only brought a little travel bottle and I was getting rather low.

I found her in her pantry, which was a tiny sitting room really, down by the kitchens. I didn’t know her;

she was new. Her predecessor, Mrs. Collins, had retired at Christmas. Daddy’d given her a pension and she’d gone to live with her married sister in Harrogate. They’d found Mrs. Simons somehow, not promoted her, so I’d never seen her before. I’d heard Mummy boasting how efficient she was, that was all.

She was sitting at a little desk, an escritoire really. It used to be Sukey’s before Mummy spilled indelible ink down it. She had lists on the drop-down shelf part, lined up very neatly, as if she were ready for

Waterloo. She was about forty, I suppose, with very crisp pepper-and-salt hair shaped almost
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like a battle-helmet.

“Good morning, Mrs. Simons,” I said.

“Good morning, Mrs. Kahn,” she replied, frosty and thin-lipped.

“As you know, Mr. Kahn and I will be staying for a few days, and we aren’t sure how long,” I said, as pleasantly as I could. “I’m sorry to put you to this inconvenience. Jeffrey thought I should speak to you about what might be necessary.”

“Yes,” she said. “In future, should anything of this nature happen, I’d prefer to be told directly, rather than through the servants. And I’ve already had occasion to reprimand Mrs. Smollett for extravagance.”

My first impulse was to apologize and appease her, but hard on its heels followed my second impulse, which was to put my chin up and tell her to go to hell. I had to defend Mrs. Smollett in any case. “I

believe it’s up to Mrs. Smollett what to serve when the family are in residence, as it would be to Mrs.

Richardson,” I said, very evenly.

“But the family are not in residence,” Mrs. Simons said, with a smile that would have curdled milk.

“You’ve married out of this family and you can’t expect to keep the privileges that came with being born into it now that you’ve married to a Jewboy.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to say. It was true in one way, and I didn’t expect to keep the privileges—Daddy had talked to me very plainly about that. On the other hand, I don’t think staying in my parents’ house in their absence was all that much of a privilege. On the other other hand, or should I