Winston's War

by Michael Dobbs

  “Loyalty. That's what this is really all about,” Hoare offered, trying to find a way out of the confrontation with a final jibe. “You go sleep with your strange friends but I'm a party man, Kitty. Always been a party man. And I'll die a party man.”

  Her lip twisted in mockery. “Dying for your principles, that I can understand, Sam. But to die for your party?”

  She reached sharply towards him. He swayed back in apprehension, alarm flooding his eyes, afraid she was intent on slapping his face, but she did nothing more than grab the umbrella that was dangling over his arm. With her trophy she walked over to the stuffed guy, stared at it as though it might spring to life, then thrust the umbrella beneath its armpit and with a final glance of dark-eyed derision swept away into the night. Hoare was left standing on his own, suddenly isolated, feeling like an abandoned bicycle.

  A gust of English embarrassment blew around the ankles of the onlookers until Beaverbrook was once again center stage, demanding their attention, strutting theatrically over to the guy as though on a tour of inspection. He was ridiculously small with a face that would not have been distinguished even on a gnome, but his money more than made up for it. A Napoleon in newsprint and an astrakhan collar. “So—what do we have here?” he demanded. “Munich Man, eh? Not quite what I had in mind.” He retrieved the umbrella and used it to prod the guy. “Whaddya think?” he addressed the gathering. “Who is he? Had him made specially, so don't disappoint me.”

  “A clue, Maxie darling, give us a clue,” a giggling voice pleaded.

  “OK. So he's a little like Guy Fawkes, maybe. Someone who tries to blow up everything in sight. Over-stuffed. Over-blown. Come on, any ideas?”

  A brief silence from the crowd and then: “Mussolini. It's got to be Mussolini!”

  “Signor Mussolini to you,” Beaverbrook growled. “Hell, he hears that and he'll confiscate my villa in Tuscany. No, not Pasta Man. Another guess.”

  A woman's voice: “With a stomach like that it's got to be Hermann Goering.”

  “No, no, no. And if you're listening up there, Hoy-man”—Beaverbrook swapped his Canadian brogue for a thick Brooklyn accent and raised his eyes to the dark skies—“we loves ya!”

  Amidst the bubbling of laughter other names were thrown in—Hore-Belisha, Herbert Hoover, Generalissimo Franco, even Wallis Simpson (“It's got to be her with the mouth open like that…”)—but Beaverbrook continued stubbornly shaking his head until: “Give us another clue, Maxie. Don't be such a tease.”

  The diminutive press baron waved his hands for silence, the gleam of mischief in his eye. “One more clue, then,” he conceded. Taking the large cigar from his own mouth, he inserted it into the slit in the face of the guy, where it remained gently smoldering. “I give you…”

  “Cigar Man. It's Cigar Man! Oh, Maxie darling, you're so wicked!”

  They cheered Beaverbrook from all sides. Only one or two of those present drifted off into the night, declining to be carried along on the tide.

  The smell of sausage and singeing onion that wafted on the breezes of that night had proved irresistible, and the canvas awning erected by the Boy Scouts as a hospitality area was crowded. Brendan Bracken had lingered on the edge for some time, fighting the urge to join their number. He was hungry but it was a question of image, and image to Bracken was most of what he had. A workman could eat sausages in public, so could an earl or an actress, but an Irish impostor had to be careful of such glancing blows to his reputation. The English insisted that things be in their rightful place, and the place for a would-be statesman who wanted to be taken so terribly seriously was not on his own in a sausage line. He imagined them all talking about him—but he always imagined people talking about him, dreamt of it, insisted on it, for to be ignored would be the biggest humiliation of all. But not about sausages. So he fought his hunger, feeling weaker with each passing minute, twisted inside by childhood memories of the kitchens of Tipperary until, despite his reservations, he could resist his cravings no longer. He grabbed a sausage and bun with all the fillings and wandered a little way from the other guests to enjoy in solitude the sensation of simply stuffing himself. That, he knew, was where the danger lay. These bangers-in-a-bun were impossible to eat delicately, you had to wolf them down before they turned on you and attacked, dripping grease and ghastliness everywhere. Bracken was notoriously fastidious, a desperate hypochondriac who took meticulous care over his appearance, washing his hands many times a day. This public encounter with a sausage was definitely a one-off, so he prepared himself. He found a spot where he could turn his back on the crowd, place his feet carefully in the sticky grass for security, lean gently forward and—

  “Why, is that Mr. Bracken hiding over there?”

  The sausage turned into a missile, disappearing into the night, leaving the bun limp in his hands and a trail of grease spreading across the front of his starched white shirt. His bow tie drooped in despair.

  “You told me you'd call, Mr. Bracken,” Anna Fitzgerald said accusingly, ignoring his plight—no, enjoying it! Bracken's arms were spread in dismay, his hair tumbled over his forehead as though trying to get a look for itself at the devastation. “You offered to show me around London, but you never called,” she continued.

  “I…I…I've…” Words suddenly deserted him as he tried to comprehend the mess of slime that was creeping across his chest. His brain and his tongue, usually so sharp and active, had seemingly dove for cover. All he could do was to gaze at her through pebble-thick glasses with the expression of a chastened child.

  “You don't like Americans?”

  “No, no, please…”

  “Married or something?”

  “No, of course not…”

  “You've got a jealous girlfriend?”

  “Nothing like that.”

  Good, she'd got that sorted. She approached much closer; he noticed she had a small dog in tow, a russet-and-white King Charles spaniel trailing from a lead. “I know, you're an important man. Very busy. Lots of distractions…”

  She had taken the linen handkerchief from his top pocket and was beginning a clean-up operation on his shirt, gently wiping away the mess, taking control. “The truth is, Mr. Bracken, you're just a little clumsy. And rather shy.”

  Anna Fitzgerald was petite, slim, almost boyish, dressed in a dark leather airman's jacket that was a couple of sizes too large for her, and boots up to her knees. She was dressed so much more sensibly than he. The cold, damp grass beneath his feet was turning to mud and already laying siege to his hand-tooled leather town shoes, yet it no longer seemed to matter. She possessed the purest black hair he had ever seen. Her eyes danced and shimmered in the light of a thousand candles. She was different—so very different from other women he had ever met. It had taken her only a few moments to break down the defenses of a lifetime and now no one else at this gathering seemed to matter. He wanted the grease stain to last forever.

  “Busy—yes. I have been busy.” At last he had regained some measure of composure, his brain in contact once more with his tongue. Other parts of his anatomy seemed to be gaining a life all their own, too. “Winston's been making speeches, keeping me running around…”

  “So no time to show a dumb American around town.”

  “Well, it wasn't just that—I mean, not that at all…” Bracken began to stammer; bugger, he was making a mess of this. He was almost relieved when she was distracted by the spaniel—whose name turned out to be Chumpers. He had found something in the grass—Bracken's sausage—and was giving it his undivided attention. “I was worried that your uncle the Ambassador, and Winston, they—how should I put this?”

  “Send smoke signals from opposite sides of the blanket?”

  “Exactly. Both very passionate people. I thought it might be difficult.”

  “You find passion difficult, Mr. Bracken?”

  “I meant that it might be awkward—for you—if I were, you know, to invite you out. Mixing with the enemy.”

  “I'm
not so sure about English girls but in Massachusetts they raise us with minds all of our own.”

  “Ah.”

  “So is it Mr. Churchill who would object if you called me? He owns your social loyalties as well as your political loyalties?”

  “Of course not!” he protested, before suddenly it dawned on him that this was probably a lie. “There was also the thought—well, I am considerably older than you. About fifteen years.”

  “Why, glory be, Mr. Bracken, you are a very ol'-fashioned gen'leman,” she whispered in a voice that reeked of Dixie and seduction on the verandah. She was mocking him, but gently. Her hand was back on his chest, adding improvements to the clean-up operation.

  “Not at all. It's just that—” He stopped. Came to a complete halt. No point in continuing. A flush had appeared upon his face that came close to matching the color of his ridiculous hair and he had an expression that suggested he might be passing kidney stones. “I'm making a complete mess of this.”

  “For the first time this evening, Brendan, I'm inclined to agree with you. So let me simplify things for you. Would you like to see me again? Take me to dinner? Show me the sights of London? Play canasta, or whatever it is genteel English folk do?”

  “Of course I would.”

  “And you know how to use a phone?”

  He began to laugh.

  “Hey, Brendan, looks like you're in business.”

  She held up his grubby handkerchief and dropped it into the palm of his outstretched hand. “Bombs away,” she whispered. Then she walked off, dragging the reluctant Chumpers behind her.

  It was a night not simply of entertainment but also of encounter and intrigue—just as Beaverbrook had required. He couldn't plan such things, of course, but he understood human nature and knew that the inevitable outcome of mixing alcohol and ego was information. And in his world, information was power.

  As he turned to mingle with other guests, he found himself pursued. A woman, tugging in agitation at his sleeve. Lady Maud Hoare, wife of Sir Sam.

  “Maxwell, dear Maxwell…”

  Whoa, no one called him Maxwell. The girl was nervous.

  “I'm so sorry. I hope it didn't cause a scene,” Maud spluttered.

  Of course it caused a scene. A splendid one. As Joe Kennedy had just remarked to him, good parties were like battles. They required casualties.

  “It's just that Sam is so passionate,” she continued. “You know that, being such good friends…”

  Friends? Well, scarcely. Friendship wasn't the sort of game played between politician and press man.

  “Like you, he's so loyal to the cause.”

  Ah, the cause. The great cause to which he had devoted so many of his front pages in recent weeks. The cause of winning! Winning was everything and Chamberlain had won, for the moment, at least. There was to be peace. It had to be so, the advertisers in the Express insisted on it. They wanted a world in which everyone had a little fun and spent a little money, not a world in which every last penny was buried in war bonds or pots at the end of the garden. So far Chamberlain had proved a good bet.

  “And Sam's under such a lot of pressure…”

  “Pressure? What sort of pressure?” Beaverbrook's news instincts were suddenly alert. He laid a comforting hand on her sleeve.

  “He'd never complain, of course, not the type. But, oh, Maxwell, the poor man's so torn.”

  “Torn?”

  “He's a good man, a great man…”

  Perhaps one day the main man, too. The man to take over the reins. Beaverbrook had a sharp eye for the runners and riders, and Slippery Sam was a man with prospects. In Beaverbrook's judgment Hoare was a man to watch, a man to be—well, all right, to be friends with.

  “You know what it's like, Maxwell, so many demands on your time, your energies, your…money.”

  Ah, so there it is. The girl had shown her slip.

  “He's not a man of inherited wealth like Neville or Edward Halifax. He can't simply run off on grand lecture tours and sell himself like Winston does.” She made it sound worse than pimping. “Sam has to struggle by on nothing more than his Cabinet salary. And it is a struggle, Maxwell.”

  What—five thousand a year? A struggle for him, maybe, but a fortune for most.

  “You know Neville couldn't have done what he's done without Sam's unfailing support—you know that, don't you, Maxwell?”

  “Most certainly,” he lied.

  “But it's slowly wearing him down, and I've been crying myself to sleep worrying about him.”

  “We can't have that, Maudy.”

  “Oh, at times I get quite desperate, watching him sacrifice himself. For others. Always for others.” Her voice had fallen to a whisper, but it was soon to recover. “I scarcely know what to do. These are such terribly difficult times.”

  How well she had rehearsed it. How easily the lip quivered, the manicured fingers clutched, how readily the nervous sentiments emerged and presented themselves in regimented line.

  “So I was wondering…”

  Here it comes.

  “Maxwell, is there any way you can think of that might just—take the pressure off him? Allow him to get on with that great job of his?”

  If you were a few years younger, maybe, Maudy, old dear, and not so hideously ugly…

  “I'm a woman, I barely understand these things, while you, Maxwell, are not only a friend but such a wise man.”

  Oh, Maudy, you think flattery is the way past my defenses? When I am surrounded every day by lap-dogs whom I pay to fawn and fumble at every moment in my presence? But present me with a business proposition, that's another matter entirely. Show me a man who is Home Secretary—one of the most powerful men in the land, the keeper of secrets, the charmer of snakes, the guardian of reputations high and low, a man who has a reasonable chance one day of being placed in charge of the entire crap game—show this man to me and place him in my debt. How much would that be worth? As a business proposition—and fuck the friendship?

  “Two thousand.”

  “I beg your pardon, Maxwell.”

  “Two thousand a year, Maud. Do you think that might help? We can't have him being distracted, having to work through his worries.”

  “No, of course not, you're so right.”

  “If I can help him, Maud, be a damned privilege. Ease those worries. Make sure my newspapers are behind him, too—hell, make sure Sam and I are working on the same team, for each other.”

  “And the cause.” She was breathless now, red in cheek, like a young girl who had just been ravished and loved every second of it.

  “An entirely private matter, you understand. No one must know apart from you and me, Maud. And Sam, of course. Wouldn't want the muck media to get hold of it.”

  “Of course, of course…I scarcely know what to say, Maxwell. 'Thank you' sounds so inadequate.”

  “No, I thank you, Maud. Sam's a great man. I'm glad to be of some service. Send him to me. We'll sort out the details, man to man.” Yes, send him on bended knee, Maudy, and get him used to the position.

  Others were approaching. The moment was over, the business done. He had bought a Home Secretary for less than the price of his new car.

  “Be in touch, Maud.”

  “Oh, we shall, we shall,” she breathed as she wafted into the night.

  “And who was that?” his new companion inquired, staring after the retreating woman. His voice was deep, carefully modulated, like that of a bishop.

  “A Hoare,” Beaverbrook muttered.

  “Oh.”

  “But a whore on my White List. For now.”

  “Ah.” Tom Driberg sucked his teeth. A tall, dark-complexioned figure in his mid-thirties with receding hair that wrinkled in the manner of a studious maharajah, Driberg was one of the many paid by Beaverbrook to “fawn and fumble.” To the outside world he was known as William Hickey, the highest-paid gossip columnist in the country, and Driberg was very good at gossip—good at both recording and creating it—alt
hough the rules by which he was required to document the misadventures and general muck-ups of the society set were far tighter than those by which he himself chose to live. One of the strictest rules governing the way in which he worked was that he should never, never, antagonize his publisher, and the White List contained the names of Beaverbrook's intimates who were deemed to be beyond bounds and who would never find their way into the William Hickey column without the copy first being scrutinized by the press lord himself. Gossip was a powerful political currency, and both Beaverbrook and Driberg were keepers of the keys.

  “Busy evening?” Beaverbrook inquired, almost casually, reminding the other man that he was here to work.

  “A Minister who appears to be canvassing for the support of a young lady who—how can one put such things delicately?—won't be old enough to vote for several years yet.”

  “Looking to the future, eh? Damn fine slogan.”

  “And an actress who has just spent the last twenty minutes rehearsing the role of Cleopatra in the back of her car. A magnificent performance, all moans and misted windows. I damned nearly froze waiting for her to take her bow. Then she steps out with her husband. It beggars belief.”

  “What is the world coming to?”

  “But the night is young.”

  “Yeah. Which reminds me. Keep your hands off the Boy Scouts. None of your nancy nonsense here. My house is off limits. Understand?”

  “I shall protect your honor down to my last item of underwear, Your Lordship.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “With the greatest pleasure.”

  “Oh, and look out for Duffie Cooper. He's here tonight, I don't suppose with his wife. He no longer makes the White List.”

  “Good. He was once very rude to me when I asked him about a certain Austrian lady with whom he was seen breakfasting on four consecutive days in Biarritz. It only goes to remind one, sir. Always be nice to them when you're coming, because you're bound to meet them again in the morning, that's what I always say.”