Winter of the World (29 page)

Meanwhile Britain, France, and the USA had agreed with Germany and Italy to adopt a policy of non-intervention in Spain, which meant that none of them would supply weapons to either side. This
in itself was infuriating to Lloyd: surely the democracies should support the elected government? But what was worse, Germany and Italy were breaching the agreement every day, as Lloyd’s
mother and Uncle Billy pointed out at many public meetings held that autumn in Britain to discuss Spain. Earl Fitzherbert, as the government minister responsible, defended the policy stoutly,
saying that the Spanish government should not be armed for fear it would go Communist.

This was a self-fulfilling prophecy, as Ethel had argued in a scathing speech. The one nation willing to support the government of Spain was the Soviet Union, and the Spaniards would naturally
gravitate towards the only country in the world that helped them.

The truth was that the Conservatives felt Spain had elected people who were dangerously left-wing. Men such as Fitzherbert would not be unhappy if the Spanish government was violently overthrown
and replaced by right-wing extremists. Lloyd seethed with frustration.

Then had come this chance to fight Fascism at home.

‘It’s ridiculous,’ Bernie had said a week ago, when the march had been announced. ‘The Metropolitan Police must force them to change the route. They have the right to
march, of course; but not in Stepney.’ However, the police said they did not have the power to interfere with a perfectly legal demonstration.

Bernie and Ethel and the mayors of eight London boroughs had been in a delegation that begged the Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, to ban the march or at least divert it; but he, too, claimed he
had no power to act.

The question of what to do next had split the Labour Party, the Jewish community, and the Williams family.

The Jewish People’s Council against Fascism and Anti-Semitism, founded by Bernie and others three months ago, had called for a massive counter-demonstration that would keep the Fascists
out of Jewish streets. Their slogan was the Spanish phrase
No pasaran
, meaning ‘They shall not pass’, the cry of the anti-Fascist defenders of Madrid. The Council was a small
organization with a grand name. It occupied two upstairs rooms in a building on Commercial Road, and it owned a Gestetner duplicating machine and a couple of old typewriters. But it commanded huge
support in the East End. In forty-eight hours it had collected an incredible hundred thousand signatures on a petition calling for the march to be banned. Still the government did nothing.

Only one major political party supported the counter-demonstration, and that was the Communists. The protest was also backed by the fringe Independent Labour Party, to which Lenny belonged. The
other parties were against.

Ethel said: ‘I see the
Jewish Chronicle
has advised its readers to stay off the streets today.’

This was the problem, in Lloyd’s opinion. A lot of people were taking the view that it was best to keep out of trouble. But that would give the Fascists a free hand.

Bernie, who was Jewish though not religious, said to Ethel: ‘How can you quote the
Jewish Chronicle
at me? It believes Jews should not be against Fascism, just anti-Semitism. What
kind of political sense does that make?’

‘I hear that the Board of Deputies of British Jews says the same as the
Chronicle
,’ Ethel persisted. ‘Apparently there was an announcement yesterday in all the
synagogues.’

‘Those so-called deputies are alrightniks from Golders Green,’ Bernie said with contempt. ‘They’ve never been insulted on the streets by Fascist hooligans.’

‘You’re in the Labour Party,’ Ethel said accusingly. ‘Our policy is not to confront the Fascists on the streets. Where’s your solidarity?’

Bernie said: ‘What about solidarity with my fellow Jews?’

‘You’re only Jewish when it suits you. And you’ve never been abused on the street.’

‘All the same, the Labour Party has made a political mistake.’

‘Just remember, if you allow the Fascists to provoke violence, the press will blame the Left for it, regardless of who really started it.’

Lenny said rashly: ‘If Mosley’s boys start a fight, they’ll get what’s coming to them.’

Ethel sighed. ‘Think about it, Lenny: in this country, who’s got the most guns – you and Lloyd and the Labour Party, or the Conservatives with the army and the police on their
side?’

‘Oh,’ said Lenny. Clearly he had not considered that.

Lloyd said angrily to his mother: ‘How can you talk like that? You were in Berlin three years ago – you saw how it was. The German Left tried to oppose Fascism peacefully, and look
what happened to them.’

Bernie put in: ‘The German Social Democrats failed to form a popular front with the Communists. That allowed them to be picked off separately. Together they might have won.’ Bernie
had been angry when the local Labour Party branch had refused an offer from the Communists to form a coalition against the march.

Ethel said: ‘An alliance with Communists is a dangerous thing.’

She and Bernie disagreed on this. In fact, it was an issue that split the Labour Party. Lloyd thought that Bernie was right and Ethel wrong. ‘We have to use every resource we’ve got
to defeat Fascism,’ he said; then he added diplomatically: ‘But Mam’s right, it will be best for us if today goes off without violence.’

‘It will be best if you all stay home, and oppose the Fascists through the normal channels of democratic politics,’ Ethel said.

‘You tried to get equal pay for women through the normal channels of democratic politics,’ Lloyd said. ‘You failed.’ Only last April, women Labour MPs had promoted a
parliamentary bill to guarantee female government employees equal pay for equal work. It had been voted down by the male-dominated House of Commons.

‘You don’t give up on democracy every time you lose a vote,’ Ethel said crisply.

The trouble was, Lloyd knew, that these divisions could fatally weaken the anti-Fascist forces, as had happened in Germany. Today would be a harsh test. Political parties could try to lead, but
the people would choose whom to follow. Would they stay at home, as urged by the timid Labour Party and the
Jewish Chronicle
? Or would they come out on to the streets in their thousands and
say No to Fascism? By the end of the day he would know the answer.

There was a knock at the back door and their neighbour, Sean Dolan, came in dressed in his churchgoing suit. ‘I’ll be joining you after Mass,’ he said to Bernie. ‘Where
should we meet up?’

‘Gardiner’s Corner, not later than two o’clock,’ said Bernie. ‘We’re hoping to have enough people to stop the Fascists there.’

‘You’ll have every dock worker in the East End with you,’ said Sean enthusiastically.

Millie asked: ‘Why is that? The Fascists don’t hate you, do they?’

‘You’re too young to remember, you darlin’ girl, but the Jews have always supported us,’ Sean explained. ‘In the dock strike of 1912, when I was only nine years
old, my father couldn’t feed us, and me and my brother were taken in by Mrs Isaacs the baker’s wife in New Road, may God bless her great big heart. Hundreds of dockers’ children
were looked after by Jewish families then. It was the same in 1926. We’re not going to let the bloody Fascists come down our streets – excuse my language, Mrs Leckwith.’

Lloyd was heartened. There were thousands of dockers in the East End: if they showed up en masse it would hugely swell the ranks.

From outside the house came the sound of a loudspeaker. ‘Keep Mosley out of Stepney,’ said a man’s voice. ‘Assemble at Gardiner’s Corner at two
o’clock.’

Lloyd drank his tea and stood up. His role today was to be a spy, checking the position of the Fascists and calling in updates to Bernie’s Jewish People’s Council. His pockets were
heavy with big brown pennies for public phones. ‘I’d better get started,’ he said. ‘The Fascists are probably assembling already.’

His mother got up and followed him to the door. ‘Don’t get into a fight,’ she said. ‘Remember what happened in Berlin.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ Lloyd said.

She tried a light tone. ‘Your rich American girl won’t like you with no teeth.’

‘She doesn’t like me anyway.’

‘I don’t believe it. What girl could resist you?’

‘I’ll be all right, Mam,’ Lloyd said. ‘Really I will.’

‘I suppose I should be glad you’re not going to bloody Spain.’

‘Not today, anyway.’ Lloyd kissed his mother and went out.

It was a bright autumn morning, the sun unseasonably warm. In the middle of Nutley Street a temporary platform had been set up by a group of men, one of whom was speaking through a megaphone.
‘People of the East End, we do not have to stand quiet while a crowd of strutting anti-Semites insults us!’ Lloyd recognized the speaker as a local official of the National Unemployed
Workers’ Movement. Because of the Depression there were thousands of unemployed Jewish tailors. They signed on every day at the Settle Street Labour Exchange.

Before Lloyd had gone ten yards, Bernie came after him and handed him a paper bag of the little glass balls that children called marbles. ‘I’ve been in a lot of
demonstrations,’ he said. ‘If the mounted police charge the crowd, throw these under the horses’ hooves.’

Lloyd smiled. His stepfather was a peacemaker, almost all the time, but he was no softie.

All the same, Lloyd was dubious about the marbles. He had never had much to do with horses, but they seemed to him to be patient, harmless beasts, and he did not like the idea of causing them to
crash to the ground.

Bernie read the look on his face and said: ‘Better a horse should fall than my boy should be trampled.’

Lloyd put the marbles in his pocket, thinking that it did not commit him to using them.

He was pleased to see many people already on the streets. He noted other encouraging signs. The slogan ‘They shall not pass’ in English and Spanish had been chalked on walls
everywhere he looked. The Communists were out in force, handing out leaflets. Red flags draped many windowsills. A group of men wearing medals from the Great War carried a banner that read:
‘Jewish Ex-Servicemen’s Association.’ Fascists hated to be reminded how many Jews had fought for Britain. Five Jewish soldiers had won the country’s highest medal for
bravery, the Victoria Cross.

Lloyd began to think that perhaps there would be enough people to stop the march after all.

Gardiner’s Corner was a broad five-way junction, named for the Scottish clothing store, Gardiner and Company, which occupied a corner building with a distinctive clock tower. When he got
there, Lloyd saw that trouble was expected. There were several first aid stations and hundreds of St John Ambulance volunteers in their uniforms. Ambulances were parked in every side street. Lloyd
hoped there would be no fighting; but better to risk violence, he thought, than to let the Fascists march unhindered.

He took a roundabout route and came towards the Tower of London from the north-west, in order not to be identified as an East Ender. Some minutes before he got there he could hear the brass
bands.

The Tower was a riverside palace that had symbolized authority and repression for eight hundred years. It was surrounded by a long wall of pale old stone that looked as if the colour had been
washed out of it by centuries of London rain. Outside the walls, on the landward side, was a park called Tower Gardens, and here the Fascists were assembling. He estimated that there were already a
couple of thousand of them, in a line that stretched back westward into the financial district. Every now and again they broke into a rhythmic chant:

They carried Union Jack flags. Why was it, Lloyd wondered, that the people who wanted to destroy everything good about their country were the quickest to wave the national flag?

They looked impressively military, in their wide black leather belts and black shirts, as they formed neat columns across the grass. Their officers wore a smart uniform: a black military-cut
jacket, grey riding breeches, jackboots, a black cap with a shiny peak, and a red-and-white armband. Several motorcyclists in uniform roared around ostentatiously, delivering messages with Fascist
salutes. More marchers were arriving, some of them in armoured vans with wire mesh at the windows.

This was not a political party. It was an army.

The purpose of the display, Lloyd figured, was to give them false authority. They wanted to look as if they had the right to close meetings and empty buildings, to burst into homes and offices
and arrest people, to drag them to jails and camps and beat them up, interrogate and torture them, as the Brownshirts did in Germany under the Nazi regime so admired by Mosley and the
Daily
Mail
’s proprietor, Lord Rothermere.

They would terrify the people of the East End, people whose parents and grandparents had fled from repression and pogroms in Ireland and Poland and Russia.

Would East Enders come out on the streets and fight them? If not – if today’s march went ahead as planned – what might the Fascists dare tomorrow?

He walked around the edge of the park, pretending to be one of the hundred or so casual onlookers. Side streets radiated from the hub-like spokes. In one of them he noticed a familiar-looking
black-and-cream Rolls-Royce drawing up. The chauffeur opened the rear door and, to Lloyd’s shock and dismay, Daisy Peshkov got out.

There was no doubt why she was here. She was wearing a beautifully tailored female version of the uniform, with a long grey skirt instead of the breeches, her fair curls escaping from under the
black cap. Much as he hated the outfit, Lloyd could not help finding her irresistibly alluring.

He stopped and stared. He should not have been surprised: Daisy had told him she liked Boy Fitzherbert, and Boy’s politics clearly made no difference to that. But to see her obviously
supporting the Fascists in their attack on Jewish Londoners rammed home to him how utterly alien she was from everything that mattered in his life.