Rule Britannia (7 page)

When Emma went in to her grandmother the following morning she found Mad sitting up in bed intent upon the local newspaper, which was spread out on the bed in front of her.

“It’s here,” said Mad delightedly, “bang in the middle of the center page. ‘Famous actress holds floor at local meeting. Pertinent question asked. Is nation being subjected to a takeover bid?’ So you see, I’ve started something, and a jolly good thing too.”

She leaned back on her pillows triumphant. Emma was reminded of days long past when as a child she had gone into her grandmother’s bedroom in London, and found her gloating over the notices of the new play in which she had performed the night before. Now, touching eighty, notoriety in the Poldrea town hall had become an equal triumph.

“What else do they say?” asked Emma, leaning over the bed.

“Read it,” said Mad. “I’m going to have my bath. Oh, there’s nothing else about our part in it—after all, we’re small beer and so is Poldrea—but read the leader about the state of the country as a whole, and what’s likely to happen. Freedom of the press, my eye! The editor’s been bought.”

Emma settled herself on the bed while her grandmother went into the bathroom. It was true, there was only the very small paragraph about the meeting in the town hall, but the headline did stand out with its “Famous Actress Sensation.” If by any chance it got picked up by the national press they would have Pa on the line again. She turned to the leading article. No mention of Mad here, of course, but a great welcome for USUK, which, so the writer insisted, was to be the saving of the country, since the fiasco of the entry into Europe some years previously. “At last we can hold up our heads… not a small offshore island but part of a vast union of English-speaking peoples, etc., etc.” Emma skipped through it, because she seemed to have been reading this sort of thing ever since she had started reading newspapers at the age of thirteen, and it was all so
boring.

She turned to the news itself, and the whole thing of the union certainly was rather overwhelming, because apparently the U.S. troops were everywhere, standing by at power-stations, telephone switchboards, TV studios, along with the U.K. forces and the police, in case, so it said, there should be trouble from these mysterious subversive elements everyone kept on talking about. But the welcome from all sections of the population was tremendous. “At last, at last…” people were saying, from financiers in the city (Pa, thought Emma) down to the old-age pensioners (not Mad). There was plenty more about free movement between the countries, joint nationality, jobs for all, opportunities open to young people, a common culture; and it seemed that Australia, New Zealand and South Africa were also to have some sort of stake in USUK—the paper did not specify quite what, but there was a rather sinister allusion to the nuclear deterrent, and how USUK could wholly control the present situation. Australia, southern and central Africa, the United States and Great Britain would then have nuclear command all the way from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

“I don’t follow all this nuclear stuff,” Emma called to her grandmother in the bathroom. “Do you?”

“Yes,” shouted Mad. “You remember what they wanted to do in Europe—make it a third force? Well, the idea fizzled out, some people blamed the left-wingers, others blamed the right. Anyway, the Europeans didn’t agree. Now, reading between the lines, I’d say we have it here, the nuclear deterrent, with the U.S., the South Africans and the Australians. Four compass points of destruction. Very pretty.”

Emma shrugged and began to make Mad’s bed. She had grown up with the word nuclear deterrent, and it meant those things rearing out of the ground and blasting off missiles thousands of miles distant that could wipe out whole areas and their populations. There was nothing anybody could do about it, except invent anti-missiles, and then somebody else had to invent an anti-anti-missile. There was no end to it. Perhaps the U.S. forces were going to cordon off Poldrea beach so that builders and technicians could install an anti-anti-anti-missile…

Mad came back from the bathroom, dressed this morning as a Siberian peasant prior to the Russian revolution. The baggy bloomers had been purloined years ago—they had formed part of the wardrobe for a provincial tour of
The Cherry Orchard.
She surveyed herself in the looking glass with satisfaction. The heavy goat-chain round her waist gave the finishing touch to serfdom. (Mad had allowed Joe to keep goats once, but had given them away when the largest had found its way onto her bed.) Alexei Vladavitch was ready for battle.

“Madam?”

It was Dottie at the bedroom door in her usual post-breakfast state of bustle.

“What is it, Dottie?”

“There’s that Lieutenant Sherman suddenly turned up, and he has a lady with him, an American lady, he introduced her to me as a Mrs. Hubbard. I had to show them into the music room but I said I wasn’t sure if you were up. I can easily say you are still in bed.”

“Let me go,” said Emma quickly, “I can cope.”

“Nonsense,” said Mad, “we’ll both go. Mrs. Hubbard… Wasn’t that the name of the woman sitting between Colonel Cheesering and the Member at last night’s meeting?”

“Yes,” replied Emma, “I believe it was.”

“H’m,” observed Mad, twitching at the goat-chain, “we’ll soon get rid of her.”

She led the way downstairs with a determined air and, followed by her granddaughter, advanced into the music room. Lieutenant Sherman was standing at ease, but he sprang to attention as she entered. Mrs. Hubbard, a pleasant-looking woman of about forty-five with a rush of teeth to the head, was staring in ecstasy at the dried hydrangea heads that filled the vases. She turned towards the Russian serf who confronted her and held out both her hands.

“Martha Hubbard,” she proclaimed, introducing herself like someone at the captain’s table on a pleasure cruise, “and many, many apologies for intruding upon your privacy. I’m so enchanted by your flower arrangement that I’ve hardly breath to speak. My, my, what a lovely home you have! And is this dear spotted doggie your especial pet?”

Folly had limped into the room from the library, and advancing towards the stranger smelt her stockings. The result must have been disappointing, for her tail drooped and she turned away to leap into the nearest chair.

“She’s a bitch,” said Mad, “nearly fifteen years old, blind and deaf, which I shall probably be in a few years’ time. This is my granddaughter, Emma.”

“How do you do, dear,” smiled Martha Hubbard. She turned once more to Mad. “Now, I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but I do want you to know how sorry I am that you did not stay for the rest of the meeting last night. I did understand your natural feelings, and my heart went out to you. You are someone for whom I’ve had a great admiration for many years, if you’ll pardon my saying so, and all I want to do, right here and now, is to try and explain our program to you and win your sympathy.”

“Program?” asked Mad, assuming a puzzled expression. “Are the Forces going to give us some sort of entertainment?”

Oh Lord, thought Emma, she’s going to do her vague thing, and deliberately misunderstand every word this Hubbard woman says. She glanced at Lieutenant Sherman, who had colored slightly and was still standing at attention. “Please do sit down,” she said hurriedly. After all, one had to be hospitable.

Martha Hubbard’s rush of teeth appeared to stretch from ear to ear. “I don’t know what the Forces have in mind,” she said, shaking her head gently at Lieutenant Sherman. “I don’t represent the Services, and I’m not political either. No, I’m just a member of CGT, the association which is over here on special duties for USUK. We are to form branches right through the country, and this is where you can help.”

“CGT?” repeated Mad, and this time her puzzled air was not assumed. “The letters sound familiar, or have I got them the wrong way round? Didn’t we have a GTC some years ago? Girls Training Corps? I can’t remember what they did, but it was something to do with Girl Guides.”

Martha Hubbard continued smiling. At least, it wasn’t exactly a smile but the way her mouth was formed, like the man in the French thriller
L’Homme Qui Rit.

“No, dear,” she said, and Emma felt that the “dear” was a bit daring, but people were inclined to use it to elderly people, “no, dear, this is not GTC but CGT, quite a different thing. The letters stand for Cultural-Get-Together. The people of the United States and the United Kingdom. The association is designed to bring us one and all into a harmonious and meaningful relationship.”

She paused for breath, the breath that had been taken away by the flower arrangement of the dried hydrangea heads.

“Cultural-Get-Together,” said Mad thoughtfully. “Well, that sounds very interesting. Something like the Women’s Institute, perhaps? Swapping recipes and showing colored slides? I have some excellent recipes in the kitchen drawer, and some old colored slides of my husband’s tucked away somewhere.”

“No, no,” Martha Hubbard hastened to explain. “I feel sure these things would be of interest to our members too, but I was thinking of a more intellectual approach. The reading of plays, books, poems, the interchange of drama, philosophy, the mutual discussion of the great problems of today that engage our thoughts and motivate our lives.”

“Motivate, motivate,” murmured Mad, and then, “Oh, you mean
direct.
The problems that direct our lives?” She still looked puzzled.

“You, with your great dramatic powers and your knowledge of stagecraft,” continued Martha Hubbard, “you could bring so much to the movement. There is the problem of increased leisure too. I don’t know if it is yet common knowledge, but I understand your government and ours, acting in partnership, are to create a Ministry of Leisure, which will be of special significance to you all in the west country.”

“Oh?” said Mad. “Because of our high rate of unemployment? You mean the people out of work don’t know how to fill their time? I wouldn’t have called that a problem of leisure myself.”

“USUK have tremendous plans for all of you,” smiled Martha Hubbard. “We know how you depend, ever increasingly, on the tourist trade, and the CGT movement intends to help with that too. Why, take this little bit of Cornwall alone—you haven’t started to develop its historical potentiality. Some of our people are highly enthusiastic about it, since they’ve heard of the association with Tristan and Isolde, and King Arthur too, very naturally. Pageants, displays, the local inhabitants dressed up possibly in the costumes of the times—you could stage the arrival of Tristan with his uncle’s bride from Ireland right here on Poldrea beach.”

Mad continued to look thoughtful, which Martha Hubbard took as a sign of encouragement. The retired and aged star was evidently impressed.

“Don’t you see,” she went on, warming to her theme, “that what you have to sell here in the U.K. is not sunshine or bathing beaches, but historical background. Why,” she turned to Emma and the lieutenant too, “the whole of the west coast from north Wales down to Cornwall here can be developed as one vast leisure-land. With the good Welsh folk dressed in their costumes, tall hats and cloaks, serving potato cakes to the tourists from the States, they wouldn’t be talking anymore of unemployment. The same in Cornwall. Now, we in the States don’t need to purchase your clay, but construct a miniature Switzerland out of your white mountains and train your unemployed as ski instructors and sleigh-drivers…”

“I beg your pardon,” interrupted Mad, “did you say slave-drivers?”

“No, dear, sleigh. They run on rollers, very picturesque. I tell you, I’m just bubbling over with ideas for the USUK Cultural-Get-Together, and with your assistance as president of the local branch…”

She broke off in mid-sentence, because the door burst open and Colin and Ben charged into the room.

“Ben has learned a new word,” shouted Colin.

“Oh no,” said Emma swiftly, “we don’t want to hear that. Come along, boys, I’ll take you to the playroom, Madam is busy, she can’t have you in here at the moment.”

But Martha Hubbard, struck dumb at the sight of a golden-haired cherub holding a small darkie by the hand, leaned forward in her chair and beckoned them towards her.

“You little darlings, you,” she said. “Do you eat candy? Does grandma there allow you to eat candy?”

Colin frowned. He had never heard the word candy in his life. Did the person with teeth mean candles? He flashed a look at Emma, who was plainly ill at ease, and then at Madam, who encouraged him with a wink and a brief nod of the head.

“Madam is Emma’s grandmother,” he said, “not mine. We use candles when there is an electric cut but Dottie doesn’t like them, she says they’re dangerous and spill grease on the floor. I’ve never tried eating them.”

Martha Hubbard threw back her head and laughed. “Candles?” she exclaimed. “Isn’t he cute? No, when I say candy, dear, I mean sugar-sticks. See?” She dived into her bag and brought forth two sticks of pink-and-white rock. “I heard there were boys in this house, so I came well prepared.” She presented a stick each to Colin and Ben, and dived once more into the capacious bag. “And I’ve something else for you besides candy. In fact, I’ve brought quite a collection of these, to put on your car and wave in the air when you go walking. All the children in the neighborhood will be presented with them besides you little fellows.”

She drew out of the bag a bunch of flags and shook them in front of Colin’s eyes. At first Emma thought they were Union Jacks and Stars and Stripes mixed up together, but as Martha Hubbard spread them out she saw that the flags were of a new design, and bore the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes side by side. The effect was somewhat dazzling, if hardly harmonious.

“Flown over from the States last night,” declared the proud presenter, “thousands of them. In a larger size they’ll be erected on all your public buildings, and on ours too.”

“Good God!” said Mad.

Luckily she said it sotto voce, and Martha Hubbard was so engaged in pressing the flags upon the boys that she did not hear the murmured exclamation. Lieutenant Sherman did, though. He looked rather awkward and rose to his feet.