The Second-last Woman in England

by Maggie Joel

  ‘Hello! Happy Coronation Day, one and all!’ called Leo from the hallway.

  ‘Hello, Uncle Leo—have you brought us anything? Hello, Aunt Felicity.’

  ‘Hello, Anne. My, don’t you look pretty in your lovely dress!’

  ‘Here you are, kids, Coronation mugs. Keep ’em safe. Could be worth a fortune one day.’

  ‘Smashing. We shall be able to set up a stall in Portobello Road soon,’ said Julius.

  ‘Harriet! How the devil are you? Looking a little peaky—or is that just the excitement of the occasion?’

  ‘Hello, Leo. Good of you to come. Felicity.’

  And perhaps it was indicative of the mounting excitement that Harriet went straight to Felicity and clasped both her hands and went to kiss her. But Felicity, who never appeared entirely at ease at the best of times, now positively turned to ice and she twisted her head at the last moment so that the kiss ended in mid-air. Then she gave her sister-in-law the most fleeting of smiles, dropped her hands and moved away, and it occurred to Cecil that, in April, Harriet had told him Felicity was pregnant. Yet here she was, two months later, and she and Leo had said nothing, and clearly Felicity was nothing of the sort.

  It had been a lie, then, to force him to help Freddie.

  ‘Uncle Leo, is Archie with you?’ said Julius, peering past his uncle into the hallway.

  ‘Yes, he’s bringing up the rear—got his own car now, you know.

  And some dolly bird.’

  ‘Don’t, Leo,’ said Felicity.

  ‘What? I didn’t say a thing!’

  It was time to go downstairs.

  He ran into the nanny as soon as he left his room. Blast.

  ‘Oh, Miss Corbett. I must apologise—’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Mumford are here,’ she said, and it seemed to Cecil that the girl had deliberately cut him off.

  ‘Yes, indeed. You’ll be joining us, will you? For the broadcast? Might be the last time we’re all together.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘My wife did explain to you that Anne has been accepted into Wellbeck College—my sister’s old school? It’s a very good place, and needless to say we’re delighted. There was some possibility—her reports from St Lydwina’s have not always been … Well, needless to say, it’s a relief. So we won’t be requiring your services much longer, then. And as we leave for the south of France at the end of June—’

  He paused. Why didn’t the girl say something?

  ‘My wife did explain …?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe Mrs Wallis mentioned it at all.’

  ‘Oh.’ Blast Harriet for putting him in this awkward spot. ‘Well, I daresay it won’t inconvenience you too substantially? Plenty of households crying out for a nanny. Of course, references won’t be a problem. Mrs Wallis will take care of all that …’

  ‘No,’ replied the Nanny, ‘I don’t believe it will inconvenience me.’

  ‘Good. Splendid. And you’ll be joining us to watch the broadcast?’

  The broadcast was set to commence at a quarter past ten and by ten past the drawing room was filling up. The sliding doors had been opened and the guests now spilled into the breakfast room too. Leo had brought his nephew, Archie Longhurst, who was doing his national service and who had arrived looking dapper in his grey airman’s uniform, his ears sticking out and a girl on his arm. The girl was called Mavis or Maeve and had an unfortunate Midlands accent. ‘Coventry,’ she had corrected, when someone had remarked on this. She clung to Archie’s arm and laughed a lot and reached for a new glass each time a tray was brought round.

  Valerie and David Swanbridge were here, David all debonair in an open-necked shirt and unseasonable suntan, laughing at everything, Valerie in orange and black, peering at everyone over the rim of her champagne, and as arch as a three-span railway bridge. Mr and Mrs Vincento from number 79 were here, and so too the Paxtons from number 18, neither of whose households had television. Little was known of the Vincentos, who were newly arrived in Athelstan Gardens. Cecil made a special point of introducing them to the Paxtons. Vaughn and Ruth Paxton were long-term Athelstan residents and, as such, key persons to know—at least they thought so. Cecil left Mr Vincento—who, despite his name, heralded from Cirencester—deep in conversation with Vaughn Paxton. The rather portly Mrs Vincento latched onto Archie, leaving Ruth Paxton and Maeve (or Mavis) from Coventry to search desperately for a conversational starting point.

  Julius had a couple of his school chums here—Alistair, and a boy called Pemberton whose father was in tinned mackerel, and who was extraordinarily tall and blushed whenever he was addressed.

  Anne had none of her friends here. Come to think of it, one was hard put to remember the name of any of Anne’s friends. There was this Brigit Myles girl, presumably, though he had never heard mention of her prior to today.

  ‘Mrs Paxton, Valerie—champagne?’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Wallis, but Vaughn and I never take alcohol before lunch.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ remarked Valerie in some surprise. ‘How crushingly dull for you. I’ll have hers, Cecil. Cigarette, anyone?’

  A catering firm had been hired for the day and a young man of Eastern European appearance was moving expertly between the guests balancing a tray of champagne glasses. Another was distributing Spanish olives on French toast, and smoked salmon, both delivered at an astonishing price from Harrods just after breakfast. There was a crab soufflé, too, cooling on the kitchen table downstairs. Good. All was going well.

  ‘Did you hear, Archie? Hillary has reached the summit of Everest. Swanbridge, did you hear? They announced it earlier over the radio.’

  ‘Good lord, is this smoked salmon, Wallis?’

  ‘It really is a magnificent achievement!’

  ‘It was really just a call to Harrods—’

  ‘They said it could never be done—not humanly possible.’

  ‘David’s company supplied them, you know, Mr Longhurst.’

  ‘The smoked salmon?’

  ‘Yes, I just telephoned to Harrods—’

  ‘For God’s sake, Cecil, no one cares where you got the blasted salmon.’

  ‘But Daddy, won’t all the men on Everest miss the Coronation?’

  ‘Be quiet, Anne.’

  ‘I say, is this real smoked salmon?’

  ‘It’s time, it’s time for the television!’ said Anne in a loud voice and everyone laughed. They began to arrange themselves in chairs around the television and Cecil went over, rather ceremoniously, to turn it on. He paused, wondering whether to mark the occasion with a few words, but the memory of breakfast still smarted, so he pulled the knob and to a loud cheer the screen crackled into life (thank heavens! What if the contraption had failed?) and there was a woman in a long gown smiling at the camera.

  ‘Welcome,’ she said, ‘to this historic broadcast.’

  ‘Hurrah!’ said someone.

  ‘Ssh!’ came a chorus of voices.

  The picture changed and suddenly they were at the Victoria Memorial, right outside the Palace.

  ‘Is Uncle Simon there? Mummy, is Uncle Simon at the Palace?’

  ‘And here she is!’ said the presenter. ‘The young Queen Elizabeth, looking serene and radiant, emerging from the Palace, the Duke of Edinburgh beside her in this splendid Gold State Coach drawn by eight magnificent Windsor Greys. It really is an auspicious moment!’

  The carriage, of course, was grey on the tiny screen, but it hardly seemed to matter, for this was really happening right now, only a few short miles away.

  ‘In’t she bootiful?’ said someone with a sigh—presumably the Mavis woman.

  ‘Quite marvellous!’

  ‘Look at the crowds!’

  ‘How many were they expecting, do you know?’

  ‘Is that my champagne?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Leo, you’re sitting on my handbag.’

  The carriage made its way along the Embankment and the commentator—a man now—had almost to shout to be heard over
the cheers of the crowds who were lined ten, twenty, thirty deep in some places. The route was lined with sailors and marines and Grenadier Guards who snapped to attention as the carriage swung past, liveried footmen walked alongside the carriage and others rode behind in a sea of pageantry that was bewildering. In no time at all the procession had swung into Parliament Square and ahead was the Abbey.

  ‘Apparently something in the region of two million television sets have been sold in the last few weeks. They’re expecting a television audience of some eight million! Extraordinary, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘So much for the starving masses and their welfare state.’

  ‘Julius!’

  ‘Quite right, old boy. The people no longer want cake, they want television!’

  They could see the carriages pull up outside the Abbey, one after another. Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother emerged and went inside, and at last the Queen’s Gold State Coach swung around the corner and slowed to a halt.

  ‘Gosh, isn’t it exciting?’ someone said.

  ‘There are four cameras positioned actually inside the Abbey. The fellows manning the cameras have so little room to move they had to choose only the smallest cameramen to sit there.’

  ‘I really don’t think anyone needs to know that, Leo.’

  ‘Uncle Leo said the whole lot’s being relayed live to West Germany, Holland and France, didn’t you, Uncle Leo?’

  ‘Don’t encourage him.’

  ‘Is that right, Mr Mumford?’

  ‘Bang on! And your lot, Archie, the RAF boys, are flying telerecordings to Canada at three points during the day. By this afternoon local time they’ll be watching this very same broadcast in North America. Think of it!

  ‘Canberra jet bombers, Mavis. Takes each one five hours to cross the Atlantic.’

  ‘Fancy!’

  ‘And here she is!’ cried the presenter. ‘Amid a magnificent hail of bells, the Queen’s coach arrives at Westminster Abbey!’

  A silence fell as the coachman opened the coach door and the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh climbed out and, surrounded by a host of white-gowned maids carrying the Royal train, they entered the Abbey. The procession of Royalty, dignitaries and clergy made their slow way down the aisle in stately silence, the Queen flanked by her six ladies-in-waiting.

  ‘What happens now?’

  ‘Ssh!’

  ‘And now the Archbishop of Canterbury speaks,’ the presenter continued.

  ‘I here present unto you Queen Elizabeth, your undoubted Queen, wherefore all who are come this day, do you homage and service. Are you willing to do the same?’

  The BBC microphones crackled.

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Ssh!’

  ‘And now the Queen takes the Coronation Oath,’ whispered the presenter.

  ‘Madam, is your Majesty willing to take the oath?’ said the Archbishop, and the silence reverberated around the abbey so that it seemed every guest was holding their breath.

  ‘I am willing!’ came back the words, strong and vibrant.

  More oaths followed before the Queen’s maid began to remove her jewels and her robes.

  ‘They’re undressing her. Why are they doing that?’

  ‘Because it’s a Coronation, you clot.’

  ‘Mummy, Julius just—’

  ‘Ssh!’

  ‘And now the Archbishop of Canterbury anoints her with the holy oil.’

  ‘Why does he do that?’

  ‘Anne! Shut up, there’s a dear.’

  The Queen was now being solemnly dressed in layers of stiff golden robes before being silently handed the symbols of her monarchy: the sceptre, the orb, the rod of mercy and the royal ring. And finally the Archbishop held the crown aloft and placed it slowly and magnificently on her head.

  Again, everyone held their breath.

  ‘God save the Queen!’ rang out through the Abbey and beyond, trumpets sounded, guns fired and bells rang in one glorious cacophony across the city.

  Cecil watched and felt a moment of perfect peace.

  ‘There’s no more champagne. Cecil, old boy—you haven’t run out, have you?’

  Cecil sat up. ‘No, of course not. I’ll go and dig some out. Harriet—where’s Harriet?’

  And Anne, standing by the window, said, ‘Daddy, the police are here.’

  Chapter Twenty-six

  JUNE 1953

  Jean stood at the window of her room and saw the people in the street below, laughing and talking excitedly, the children in their Sunday best waving their miniature Union Jacks, the girls with their hair tied in colourful ribbons, the boys in their smartly polished shoes. And the ladies in their pretty dresses, their hair stacked high on their heads or hidden beneath smart hats.

  And over it all the grey clouds gathered and a driving rain began to fall.

  She bent her head so that her forehead touched the window pane. The glass felt cool against her skin. She raised both hands to shoulder height and pressed them flat against the window, her fingers splayed. Her hands pressed harder against the glass so that the fingers went rigid and her wrists began to ache and the muscles in her forearms twitched. The glass would break, the jagged broken pieces would slice through the delicate flesh and tendons of her wrists and sever the arteries. There would be blood, a great deal of blood. Or perhaps she would fall, would tumble out of the broken window and down, down three storeys to the pavement below. It would kill you, a fall like that. She could already see herself sprawled on the ground far below, her neck broken.

  She pushed, but the glass did not break. Her arms fell limply to her sides.

  God had deserted her.

  Outside the rain suddenly became a downpour and with shrieks and laughter the people picked up their skirts and their children and covered their hair-dos and ran for shelter, splashing through puddles, battling with umbrellas. They returned to their large houses to turn on their televisions and somewhere, not too far away, a queen was being crowned. The lampposts were hung with flapping, soggy bunting.

  God had deserted them all.

  And Mr Wallis had made a speech.

  There had been no speech in this household on Christ’s birthday and no marking of the occasion of His death on the cross. But on this day of pomp and ceremony Mr Wallis had made a speech. He, who had never known a single day of discomfort, who had spent his childhood in comfort and security, who had fought the war from behind the safety of a large desk in his important office, was this morning delighted to be celebrating such a momentous event with his family.

  The children had received Coronation mugs and, when they had spurned the gifts bestowed on them, Mr Wallis had offered them to her, the nanny. She would rather commit a thousand mortal sins than accept such an offering.

  Dad had had a Coronation mug for the old King’s Coronation in ’37. It had four flags on the side beneath a crown and two oval portraits, one of the King and one of the Queen and the words ‘LONG MAY HE REIGN’ in fancy writing underneath. It had hung on a hook on the dresser in the kitchen for as long as anyone could remember, and Dad had drunk his cup of tea out of it every morning, regular as clockwork. Even that last Sunday.

  Even on that last Sunday, when everything else had changed.

  Dad had come home at dawn that February morning, which was odd because his shift usually didn’t end till eight o’clock. Had she noticed that at the time? Had she thought, That’s odd, Dad’s home early? Or was it only afterwards that she had realised that something was amiss?

  By that stage of the war, with the shortages so severe, Dad was working every nightshift for the extra money and often, if the shift was undermanned or a big ship was in, he worked the morning shift too. It was looters, mostly, that Dad guarded against. Saboteurs, the government called them, and very anxious they were about it, too, according to Dad, as though the ships that came in for servicing and repairs were top secret when really they were just old tankers and passenger liners refitted as t
roop ships and supply ships, part of the convoys that sometimes managed to cross the North Atlantic.

  When she and Gladys had come down for breakfast Dad had been sitting at the kitchen table, his mug—the old Coronation mug—sitting empty before him, his face pale and blinking from lack of sleep, his eyes red-rimmed like everyone’s eyes had been in the Blitz from the smoke and lack of sleep. Mum had looked up at them standing in the doorway, herself and Gladys already in their Sunday best, and she had stood up abruptly, so abruptly she had knocked over her chair.

  ‘Go and play outside, please, children. Your Dad and I have things to discuss,’ and she had shut the kitchen door.

  No one ever shut the kitchen door. It was always open. She and Gladys had stared at each other in silent confusion.

  ‘Tell the others,’ Jean had instructed Gladys. ‘Tell them Mum and Dad have something to discuss. Tell them to play outside until it is time to go to Chapel,’ and Gladys had nodded wide-eyed and gone upstairs to tell them. For that was what you did, you became Mum and Dad when Mum and Dad weren’t there; as the eldest it was expected.

  Between them they had shepherded Nerys and Edward and Bertie into the street with the minimum of fuss and set them to a game of ‘What’s the Time, Mr Wolf?’

  ‘Are you not playing, Jean?’ said Gladys, watching her elder sister closely, taking her cue from her.

  Jean had shaken her head. ‘I’ll keep watch,’ she had replied. And she had returned to the house and stood outside the kitchen, waiting till it was time to go to Chapel.

  But they hadn’t gone to Chapel. Half an hour had passed, and at last Mum had emerged from the kitchen, a worried frown on her face, and she had paused when she saw her eldest daughter.

  ‘We’re not attending Chapel, Jean. Go and tell the children and get them out of their best clothes. I don’t want them spoiling them playing in the street.’

  It was a February morning, 1945. The wind, Jean remembered, had been bitingly cold, and, with no coal to burn, the house had been almost as cold as the street outside. And the children out in the wind and in their Sunday clothes. She remembered being worried about their clothes—if they spoiled their best clothes they would be attending Chapel in their week-day clothes, all patched up and hand-me-downs, and Mum would never have allowed that. The clothes were Jean’s responsibility; if they were ruined she would be to blame. She would fetch the children in.