R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield (73 page)

'How old is he?' David wanted to know, and she said thirty-two or three. 'He's a prominent pacifist, so at least our approaches offer alternatives. His father was a friend of Bertrand Russell, who served time during the war as a conscientious objector.'

'Seems grass-rooted,' David said, 'you'd better watch him.'

'Come, you don't really believe that, Davy. Not after what happened to Ulrich's father.'

'I don't know what I believe any more. Sometimes I think the Sixth Formers have a clearer picture of what's happening than I have. Politically speaking I'm a museum-piece nowadays. Listen, hustler, it's hopeless for me to think of getting up there this weekend. Assuming you get chosen, when is your adoption meeting likely to be?'

'Second week in May, but how can you attend that? You know what happened last time.'

He could chuckle at that. 'It's not the same,' he said, 'these days I call the tune and they'd have the devil's own job to unseat me now. Algy and Howarth say I'd see 'em all off. How about the Saturday after next, in Manchester?'

'Please,
sir,'
she said, and then, 'I still love you very much, Davy.'

'I'm delighted to hear it. But will it survive a wildly acclaimed maiden speech in the House?'

'It would survive me becoming the first Prime Minister in petticoats and you know it. You're just fishing for compliments.'

He rang off, feeling braced. There was no positive future in their association
but it was good to feel they still enjoyed the easy comradeship of the past, after such a long separation.

He had not expected her to meet him at the barrier, assuming she would be too busy, but she was there, peering anxiously at the stream of passengers from the West Country train, and he realised at once that something was amiss. She looked as bleak and tense as the night he had escorted her home to her lodgings, after that rowdy meeting, in the autumn of 1931, and bore no resemblance to his assessment of the eager girl he had talked to on the phone ten days before. He said, at once, 'What's happened, Chris? That long haired chap hasn't pipped you, has he?' and she said, 'I could have faced up to it if he had, but you can't call a unanimous vote in his favour a pipping, can you?'

'The same old story? A woman can't win a Labour seat?'

'No, a very new story. They're incapable of facing facts and that's a tragedy, not just for me but for the party, and the country, too, in the long run. Where can we go? I need a drink.'

'I booked the night at the Queen's and shall have to sign in. We can get a drink and a meal there. I'll get a taxi.'

'It isn't worth it,' she said, 'it's just down the approach to Piccadilly,' and she walked silently beside him down the setts to the hotel lobby, waiting while he signed in and sent the man up with his key and bag. He ordered two double whiskies and noticed she downed hers like a toper.

'Was it so very bad?'

'It's the end of everything for me. For some years, at least.'

'But why, for God's sake? There'll be other vacancies, and there are rumours of an election next year.'

'You don't get the message. I made a declaration. Some people would see it as tempting Providence, but I can't work any other way, and neither could you if you were in my shoes. The Labour Party is traditionally pacifist. I don't have to remind you of that, do I?'

'No, you don't, but hang it, Chris, even Baldwin is playing it in low keys these days. What the hell did you say to them to set them against you en masse?'

'I told the truth, as I saw it. They asked me my views on disarmament, and I told them it would be sheer madness in view of what's happening in Germany and Italy. Good God, they read the papers, don't they? They must
know Jews are being forced to sweep the streets, that their property is being confiscated, that even the toddlers in Germany are being drilled, that anyone who questions Hitler and his Brown Shirts is dragged from his bed in the middle of the night and never seen again. I told them children in schools were being taught to inform on their parents, that the declared policy of Hitler is to build the biggest military machine in history. I told them Socialists were being murdered in Italy, and that newspapers were being sold on the streets of Berlin with cartoons showing Jews eating Christian children. I was there a mere three months but I saw some of these things, and what I didn't see was confirmed by people who had. I told them about Ulrich. Do you know what the Chairman said in reply? The only way to stop it was by Christian example – that disarmament on our part would be a gesture everyone else would follow! How's that for wishful thinking?'

'You don't have to convince me,' he said, 'I admitted I was confused but I've since had several talks with Meyer. As a matter of fact, I got him to come and talk to the Sixth. It set them thinking, I can tell you. The point is, where do you go from here? Newspaper articles, or a report to Transport House that the party should rethink its policy?'

She made a gesture of impatience. 'What good would that do? I'm not the only one who understands what's happening, but how do you set about persuading a caucus to reverse its thinking? For that matter, how do you alert the right wing, never mind the left?'

'I suppose the same way you convince anybody of anything. By simply pegging away.'

She said, thoughtfully, 'There's more to it than that, Davy. The ability to use Ulrich to make your point for you, at a place as hidebound as Bamfylde, gives you the advantage on all of us. As a matter of fact, since they rejected me in favour of that self-opinionated little whippersnapper, I've been doing some rethinking myself. It's time I did. You can get punch-drunk on blue books and pamphlets and I'm beginning to suffer from a hangover.'

'What does that add up to?'

She smiled. 'Dear Davy… I can't tell you here. How well do you know the country about here?'

'Hardly at all. It's flat and built up, isn't it?'

'No, it isn't. It's only flat on the Cheshire side. We'll go to Dovedale, the best walking country in England. I was there last weekend, with a chum of mine from University days.'

'I shall have to catch an early Sunday train back. It's slow and will take me eight hours. Howarth is standing in for me and he's not too well.'

'I'll get you back in time.'

He followed her out to catch a bus to Openshawe, where her bumblebee car was garaged and an hour later, meeting little but cycling and hiking parties on the road, they were deep in the Dales, and he saw that he had underestimated Derbyshire, despite doing 'Peveril of the Peak' with the Middle Fourth, when Howarth was off sick last winter. The hills, shimmering in May sunshine, were crowned with masses of rock, and the slopes down to the Dove were clothed with older, more civilised woods than the straggling thickets on the banks of the Bray, Barle and Exe. They had tea in a pub and she led him down to the floor of the valley. Her spirits lifted when they saw the word 'Chatsworth' on a signpost and he reminded her that Mary, Queen of Scots, had spent part of her nineteen years' imprisonment up here. She said, 'Another poor devil trapped in men's politics. Was she really guilty of all those plots, Davy?'

'As guilty as hell,' he said, 'She was party to a plot to assassinate Elizabeth by exploding gunpowder under the bed. But it never stopped her being a great favourite in the Junior School. She's got a romantic aura. I can always guarantee attention when I'm telling the Third about the last scene at Fotheringay. Especially that bit about the red wig coming off and exposing her as a grizzled old hag.'

She laughed and he was glad to note a rise of her mercury. 'You really do go for the gory details, Davy. But who are you to sneer at the romantics?'

'Oh, I don't. I make 'em work overtime for me. Until I get to the Fifth, that is,' and suddenly she stopped in her stride, swung him round and kissed him on the mouth.

'You're wonderful medicine for me, Davy.'

They were moving along a down-curving track, about some two hundred feet above the river. Oak, beech, thorn and chestnut grew in profusion, and although this was clearly a popular hikers' path they had met none over the last mile. She said, 'In here, Davy…' and steered him off the track into a tiny glade, carpeted with the skeletons of last year's leaves and sown with bluebells and wood anemones. 'We've waited long enough, Davy. Too long for our good. I'm sure of you, absolutely sure and, just for the record, there never was anyone else in Canada or the States.'

'You don't have to justify yourself to me.'

'I do. No one else means a damn to me.'

Until then, until the moment she stopped, he had been aware on her part of something that had not been there in the serene days when they had been lovers on the shore of Windermere, or even that occasion he had been able to bring a measure of peace to her after that rowdy meeting at Bilhampton. But now, screened by the thickets, she seemed to reflect and as his arms went round her she said, mildly, 'Here, Davy? Now?' and the way she said it gave him pause. He lowered his head and kissed the swell of her breast above the neck of her blouse.

'That's for you to say, Chris. At Bilhampton you needed me. I'm not so sure now, in spite of what happened back there. You've grown a lot since then. You'll shake it off with or without me.'

'I daresay. But I'll always need you. Not just when I've taken a tumble. I had a special reason for bringing you out here. If it had been simpler we could have stayed in town, I'll try and explain, but kiss me first. As though you meant it.'

He kissed her mouth and felt her tremble. She said, 'It's enough, you see. You've only got to touch me, Davy,' but then, to his astonishment, she moved apart from him and taking lipstick and mirror from her handbag set about restoring her make-up.

He had a picture gallery then of the three women he had held in his arms, performing this same office, and in a way it emphasised their differences. Beth did it absentmindedly, as part of a daily routine. Julia Darbyshire did it painstakingly, as though the face she meant to show to the world was her sole capital, but Christine was different again. She applied lipstick, powder puff and comb with swift, impatient flourishes, the way she tackled most things, following through an impromptu plan but with half an eye on the clock. He said, 'I wouldn't bother with the war paint. We're not going home yet, are we?'

'That could depend,' she said, 'on all manner of things.'

'Such as?'

'Your tolerance, to start with.'

'Take that for granted. Especially as you cheered me up by saying there was no one else in the picture.'

'Not that kind of tolerance, Davy.'

'Well?'

'I've always thought of you as my husband, my real husband, that is. If I hadn't I wouldn't have gone to bed with you, not even that night in Bilhampton
when I was in the depths of misery. I'm not really promiscuous, although I suppose some people would say I was. I thought I loved Rowley. But I've known I loved you, from the second time we met and I went to confessional in that Newport pub. No, I mean something more important. I'm free, Davy. Or will be, in August.'

She could not have said anything more calculated to astonish him. 'Free? Rowley's agreed to let you divorce him?'

'Well, not exactly.' Her smile was a little crooked, revealing a tingle of malice that was uncharacteristic of her. 'I cornered him and forced him to let me go. On pain of being divorced the hard way. Now I suppose you'll want the entire sordid story.'

'Don't you think I'm entitled to it?'

She considered. 'Yes, you are. You've been very patient. A damned sight more than most men would have been!'

'You're saying we can get married? That you'd settle for Bamfylde?'

'I wouldn't marry you any other way, Davy. That would be treachery.'

'Well, then,' he said, catching up her hands, 'to hell with how you got rid of him. I don't give a damn if you beat it out of him with a club,' but she said, 'Wait, Davy – you might as well hear it now. It isn't something I'm proud of. There was a lot to be desired in Rowley, but I never did doubt the sincerity of his religious convictions and I left more scars on him than he's left on me.'

'Serve him damn well right.'

'I can't look at it that way. I wish I could but I can't.'

'What happened?'

'I got word of him through a mutual friend and dropped a hint that I'd be delighted to see him again. As an old friend. For a chat, say. He came over one day last summer all smiles and dear-old-girlish. After a pat and a pinch he implied he was all in favour of a form of reconciliation.'

'How do you mean, a “form of reconciliation"?'

'Rowley's kind. I was to remain his official wife, eager and available when he was randy, busy or between mistresses. He was to have a long leash. Say a couple of miles at full stretch. I saw my opening then and pretended to go along with the idea. I even let him get to the point where he was convinced the next time he'd make it all the way back. That wasn't difficult. Bright as he is, he's got a colossal male ego, and wrote off my reservations as a Nonconformist hangover on account of his other sleeping partners. It meant using my body as a bait but it worked like a charm.'