I cannot remember when my composure first snapped. I have no recollection of any particular event from which I retreated into myself. I do not think that one particular harsh outburst from Winston triggered a recoiling. I simply recall a dark hollow within me into which I crawled when the anxiety overwhelmed.
How dare I complain when others suffer far worse fates? I would tell myself. Look at my poor sister Nellie, whose husband was severely injured during the war and is forced to support her family—including two small children—on a small disability pension? How would they fare without the help we give them when we can? In comparison to them and countless others, I had no right to suffer. But suffering came whether or not I was worthy.
* * *
“We must take extreme care,” Dr. Gomez says to Winston. I hear the slightest quiver in the doctor’s usually commanding voice. Better than anyone, I understand how daunting it can be to give instructions to my husband, particularly unpopular ones.
Winston chews on the end of his cigar, a nasty habit he has developed. He has been immune to my pleas to stop it. “What do you mean by ‘care’?” he asks.
Dr. Gomez gives a quick glance over to the bed where I am resting. We have already rehearsed this speech. The doctor knows that he must select his words with great deliberation. I might be ill, but I have not been robbed of my senses and well-honed skill of managing Winston.
“She needs rest, Mr. Churchill,” Dr. Gomez finally answers.
“Rest? You mean a vacation?” Winston stops chewing his cigar and gives it a weak puff. “I can arrange for a family trip to the Mediterranean, if you think some sunshine would do the trick. Come to think of it, we’ve been asked to visit Sir Ernest Cassel in Nice. Not that it will be terribly warm in France at this time of year, of course.”
“That isn’t exactly what I had in mind.” The doctor clears his throat. “Your wife’s condition is serious. She will need complete rest.”
“Condition?” Winston asks, his brow furrowing. Has my health really escaped his notice? How can he ignore the canceled obligations and the long days I’ve taken to my bed? The afternoon I spent listless but for the bouts of banging my forehead against my bedroom wall? The angry notes I’d leave for him in the morning, only to send him later instructions to burn them without opening? The dinner party where I had to excuse myself during the first course, and he found me, hours later, sitting on the floor of my dressing room? Or does he wish it all untrue and so selects oblivion?
I brace myself under the layers of blankets that cover me in my bed. How will the doctor describe the utter mental and physical exhaustion I’ve experienced? How will he define the swings from frenetic activity—always at Winston’s behest—to a tiredness so leaden and complete, I cannot leave my bedroom?
As Dr. Gomez clears his throat again before speaking, I find that my hands are clenched under my bedsheets. Will he answer as we discussed? Will he avoid the terms breakdown or neurasthenia, words laden with such heavy connotation that I fear Winston will never perceive me the same way again? While I want Winston to understand that my need for recovery is real, I never want him to think me incapable of being his full partner. The moments I spend with Winston on the nation’s work are the moments I feel most alive, and yet, they drain me as well, so I walk along this tightrope.
“Mr. Churchill, your wife is suffering from nervous exhaustion. It is a very real condition that will require rest and time apart from the children, from the care of your home, and from her duties.”
My body relaxes, and I exhale the breath I’d been unconsciously holding. Dr. Gomez utilized the phrase I’d begged him to use, and he avoided mentioning the most obvious cause of my stress. He did not say what everyone else thinks—that being married to Winston must be unfathomably challenging. Only Nellie will say aloud that it is Winston from whom I need time apart. Just several weeks, I think, and then I can weather whatever storm Winston brews.
“I did not realize, Dr. Gomez.” Winston’s voice does not bear its usual bravado. For the first time, I sense that he understands.
“She will need to be away from home for some time. Only then can she truly rest in the manner absolutely necessary.”
“Of course, Dr. Gomez. Whatever my wife needs to recuperate, she shall receive.”
“Wonderful. If so, I am confident of a complete recovery.”
Dr. Gomez takes his leave, and Winston ambles over to my bedside, dragging a chair with him. After he squeezes his girth into the delicate design, he reaches for my hand. “Oh, Cat, I am so terribly sorry.”
“My dear Pug, whatever are you sorry for? I’m the one who’ll be abandoning you and the children to your own devices.” The trips I’ve taken in the past have always been short in duration. This will be an entirely different sort of journey.
“I fear that it is my demands that have brought you so low.”
Ah, I think, he does know. And yet, he has never withheld his requests. I clasp his hands tightly but do not answer. While I don’t want to admit to him that he’s the cause of my distress, I will not lie boldly by denying the truth of his admission. It’s too hard won.
“I will oversee the children and the final renovations to the house on Sussex Square. All you need to focus upon is your rest,” he says.
While I appreciate his overture, in truth, three of the children will be away at school most of the time. Randolph has been boarding at Sandroyd Preparatory School for a few years, and Diana and Sarah attend Notting Hill High School as day pupils, where I long for them to have the sort of broad education I experienced at Berkhamsted. It is Marigold, just two years old and cared for by another new nanny, about whom I worry. She is prone to colds and fevers, and the nanny will need oversight.
“Even Duckadilly?” I ask him, using our pet name for her.
“Especially Duckadilly,” he answers with a small smile. “I need a healthy Cat by my side. I’ll need you fit for the political fights that are drawing near. Not to mention that I’ll need your counsel as I assume my new post as colonial secretary.”
I return his smile, but it is strained. It has not escaped my notice that, in the same breath as he urges on my recovery, he reminds me of my duties. To him.
* * *
Have I made the right choice to join Winston in Egypt?
The nearly two months I spent in hotels in coastal France—with only my maid, Bessie, for company—softened my nerves and mind, and by the end, when I looked at myself in a mirror, I started to see a healthy thirty-six-year-old with a certain vivacity in the eyes, not the frazzled, gray-skinned woman I’d become. I began to believe that the money we’d cobbled together for this time away was well spent.
I worried about relinquishing part of my quiet time away when Winston wrote asking me to join him in Cairo for the Middle East Conference, where matters important to British interests in the region would be discussed and postwar political issues would be settled. For a time, I didn’t answer but simply considered the invitation. When I decided that I was strong enough to sally forth, I made my travel plans for Egypt. The lure of the sunlight and my curiosity about the pyramids were too great, and Winston had promised continued rest. Plus, the costs would be borne by the government, and thus the financial burden of the remainder of my “cure” would not fall upon us.
He was gentle with me from the moment we settled into the opulent Mena House Hotel, where the British delegation was staying. As our room was readied and our trunks unpacked, we sat down to tea on the veranda. Through the fronds of the palm trees that surrounded the sumptuous hotel, an oasis of greenery in the vast sandy expanse of the desert, we were greeted by a spectacular view of the Great Pyramid.
“Pug missed his Cat,” Winston said quietly after we’d given the famous structure its due attention. “And so did her kittens.”
“And Cat missed her Pug,” I replied, softly stroking his hand. “And the kittens
too,” I added, although, as I said the words, I realized how little I’d actually reflected on the children during the two months away, except when I wrote their daily letters. Even Marigold had received little of my thoughts. What was wrong with me? Did I unconsciously avoid thinking about them because of the worries they prompted? Shouldn’t a mother be preoccupied with her children when she is apart from them?
“I promise that this trip will be as relaxing as Dr. Gomez instructed,” he said, holding my hands tightly as if shaking on an agreement. I did not know if I could trust this promise. Many times in years past, he had vowed to relent in his demands and outbursts when my nerves had been stretched so thin that even he noticed. Yet he’d never managed to keep those promises.
True to his word, however, the following days brought nothing but marvelous dinners with politicians and archaeologists and light tennis with embassy officials’ wives. Winston required only my presence and no assistance, and I delighted in meeting the famous Colonel T. E. Lawrence, about whom I’d heard so much. When Winston first introduced me to Lawrence as we embarked on a visit to Sakkara, I couldn’t believe that the reticent, small man standing before us was the charismatic leader who’d prevented Arab forces from aligning with Germany during the Great War. But his shyness fell away as we journeyed, and I saw his deep connection with the Arab people and his courageous conviction. None of us are what we seem at first, I remind myself. No one sees that my nerves are stretched near to splintering behind my own composed exterior after all.
After years of feeling weighted down by the minutiae of everyday life, I begin to feel light again and part of something larger than myself and my own worries. The trip to Giza reinforces this sensation, I think as I squint up at the famous sand-colored Egyptian monuments, quite unable to believe that they are real. Of course I’d seen sketches of the Great Sphinx of Giza and the Great Pyramid it guards in school and in the newspapers. But mere representations do not do justice to the reality of these limestone testaments to the prowess of the ancient Egyptian civilization.
“Makes one feel small, doesn’t it, Clemmie?” Winston calls over to me.
I can barely hear him over the braying of the camels, so he repeats himself, and I call back, “It does indeed, Winston.”
He gestures for our native guide to bring his camel closer to mine, and I hold my breath, hoping he does not slide off the bony creature as he did earlier today. “Makes one’s contributions feel small as well. After all, these fellows have stood for God knows how many thousands of years. I doubt any of my efforts will last anywhere near as long,” he adds when he’s close enough for me to hear him properly.
I know that Winston has spoken aloud his greatest fear. That his life will not have long-ranging impact for his country. He is terrified that the prescience he’s felt since childhood about the crucial role he’ll play in England’s future will come to naught. I open my mouth to offer a reassuring word but quickly shut it when I see Lawrence approach on his camel. Winston would never want me to reveal his secret dread to him.
As I watch my husband chat with Lawrence and then Gertrude Bell, the well-known archaeologist and key political adviser, I feel an unexpected sense of calm. I haven’t lost any of my newfound peace during my days with Winston in Egypt. He has gone about his work helping establish the government and boundaries of Iraq and other portions of the Middle East without demanding my help, only asking if I want to participate.
Dust flies about in the air as the other members of our traveling party gather together, and I wrap my ivory scarf around my nose and mouth. I watch as Winston, his private secretary, Archie Sinclair, Lawrence, Bell, and a cadre of English politicians and diplomats form a line with the Great Sphinx and Great Pyramid as a backdrop, and I realize that they are assembling for a photograph.
“Clemmie,” Winston, red-faced from the bright sunlight, yells to me. “Come join the line! Here, to my right.”
I wave him off. This is an official portrait, not the classic tourist souvenir. And none of the other politicians and diplomats have brought their wives. My presence in the image is not appropriate, as I am a mere bystander to this critical juncture in the future of the region.
“Come along, Clemmie,” Winston calls out again. “We need you here. You are part of this historic moment as well.”
Was I really part of this or merely a bystander to world-shaping events? History would likely only record my husband, although I’ve played a significant hand in his affairs. I suppose only time will tell.
As we ride back to Cairo, Lawrence informs us that a crowd of students had been protesting outside our hotel. His sources told him that the students had been invoking curses against both Winston and me for the British involvement in what they perceive to be solely Egyptian affairs, namely how the region’s lands are to be ruled in the fallout of the Great War. “All safety precautions must be taken,” Lawrence cautions us, but still, the anxiety that I’ve worked so hard to mute begins to mount.
I know that Winston will neither arrange the necessary protections nor abide by them once they are instituted. He plows through life toward his goals, without self-care or concern about his impact on others. Even though I’ve stayed in the background during this trip, I understand that I must step into my usual role or risk harm to ourselves and others.
“What do you recommend, Colonel Lawrence?” I ask.
As Lawrence and I review security measures, Winston chatters on with Miss Bell about the issues at stake in the conference—whether Lebanon and Syria should remain under French control and whether England should maintain Palestine and support a Jewish homeland there, among other topics. When we near the Mena House, we are intercepted by Sir Herbert Samuel, the British high commissioner for Palestine, who’d come to Cairo to warn us of a plot to murder us.
Winston and I are murder targets? My breathing becomes shallow, and my heart races. But I cannot show this; I must stay calm so that I can ensure that Winston will follow the security protocols. In situations of past danger, he’s been nonchalant, even foolhardy, and if I’m not vigilant, who knows what might happen?
As I expected, Winston scoffs, “This seems much ado about nothing. There will always be talk and empty threats, especially by those who don’t care for our agenda.”
I am tired of his devil-may-care attitude, not only with his own well-being but with the others in our retinue. I take a deep breath and try to stop my voice from quivering. Using a tone he knows will brook no resistance, I say, “Winston, we must take Sir Samuel’s warning seriously. Colonel Lawrence, can we put those precautions we discussed into immediate effect?”
“Indeed, ma’am,” he answers.
Colonel Lawrence directs the car through the warren of Cairo streets so that we approach the Mena House Hotel from the back rather than the front gateway. A dense mob has assembled around the entire perimeter of the hotel, even in the back. The driver decides to plow through the throngs, but the protestors climb on the car’s running boards and bang upon the windows. Seeing a number of their ranks descend upon our car, the mob moves toward us as if one entity. This scene is overly familiar, and I am terrified.
“Should we wait for the mounted police to arrive?” I ask, trying to control my breathing. This situation is very like the one we faced in Belfast, and we only narrowly escaped there.
“I don’t think there is enough time,” Colonel Lawrence says, turning to look behind us. “And we lost Sir Samuel’s men.”
“What if we send our security guards to walk alongside the car as we drive through the crowd? I don’t want them to be directly in harm’s way, but they aren’t deterring the mob from the inside of the car,” I ask.
“It’s worth a try.”
Lawrence instructs the security guards, and as they step out, a protester’s hand slips into the car and grabs at my hat and hair. I cannot help but shriek. My hands shaking, I pry the fingers off me and shove th
e hand through the door. The car begins to drive slowly but steadily through the crowd until we reach the back gate to the hotel. The hotel guards gather around the car, shielding us from the protestors as we step inside the building. Once inside, I lean against the wall, eyes closed, trying to regain my composure.
Eyes alight, Winston turns to me with that half smile and says, “We made it through all right, didn’t we, Clemmie?” As if the mob and the death threat and the protester’s fingers in my hair were all a lark. And I realize that, despite promises to the contrary, nothing has changed.
Chapter Twenty
April 13–14 and June 29, 1921
London, England, and Dieppe, France
I brace myself as the front door to our new home in Sussex Square opens, a place I hope we settle after living in countless rented London houses on weekdays and numerous temporary country cottages on weekends over the past few years. What greeting will I find within its walls? What do I even deserve after so long away from my children and duties?
“Welcome home, Mummy!” the banners declare in red and blue, written in a childish scrawl more endearing than any elegant calligraphy. They drape across the staircase and walls.
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