by Maggie Ford
There was frantic talk of evacuating the children, rumour of enforced conscription – every male between eighteen and forty-one. It was fiercely contested by the Labour and Liberal Parties, but all the same very possible, and Letty thought of Chris and nightly died a small death for him.
It was all so different to the onset of 1914 when suddenly the country had found itself at war, everyone excited, going crazy with war fever. ‘It’ll be over by Christmas!’ Those words still rang in her head.
Not so this time. That there was going to be a war, Letty was in no doubt, but this one was creeping up on them all – visible but unstoppable – all the more ominous for their having to watch its approach helpless to prevent it.
‘I’m so frightened.’ Letty echoed the fear of every woman in the land. She dared not voice that fear before Chris, somehow believing that keeping it from him might prevent his running headlong into enlisting as he had almost done during the civil war in Spain.
‘We’re all edgy,’ David said. ‘But somehow I don’t think it will come to war. We won’t make the mistakes we made twenty-four years ago. We’d be fools to be drawn into a quarrel that’s none of our concern.’
‘God, I hope you’re right!’ Letty said fervently as they stood in the park gazing up at a barrage balloon.
David was right. At the beginning of October the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, went to Munich to meet Germany’s dictator. He returned triumphant. War had been averted. He had promises, signed by Hitler himself. Relief swept the nation like a refreshing wind.
‘Thank God for that!’ Letty sighed when David came that weekend. In a whimsical mood he bought her a bag of sweets – sugared umbrellas – replicas of that comforting utilitarian object the Prime Minster carried wherever he went and which had become his personal trademark. Opening the bag, her laughter swept away every last vestige of fear as she drew out tiny pink umbrellas.
Everything in life was sublime. Chris had got himself on the staff of the News Chronicle. With his university education he had been given a position as one of its political journalists – nothing special as yet but he was doing well, he and Eileen planning to get married next August. They had peace. She had David – or at least half of him, Madge clinging remorselessly to the other half, which prompted David to vow with a sort of desperate determination to spend this Christmas with Letty.
‘What about Madge?’ she asked. Unbelievable that they should be together at Christmas for the first time ever. Madge would find some way to stop him, she could almost bet on it, and loathed her afresh.
‘She’s not coming!’ he said with slow drollery, sweeping away Letty’s disquiet.
Heartened, she pushed him playfully down on to the sofa, a new one – all her furniture was new, beautifully made especially for her. The flat was full of lovely things, expensive things, tasteful things. It was her delight, her haven, her love-nest when David was there. She leaned over him, kissed him, suddenly serious.
‘Dear God, I wish you were free, David. I wish we were married.’
He returned her kiss tenderly, gently, the urgency gone with the years. Even so, Letty yearned to have him to herself wholly, to share him with no one, least of all a wife.
David, on his way to his own bedroom at the far end of the passage from Madge’s, stopped abruptly and turned to stare down at her standing at the foot of the curved staircase, disbelief slowly permeating his brain.
‘What did you say?’
Madge’s smile as she stared up at him was mocking.
‘I said, if you want your divorce, you can have it.’
The mocking smile broadened. She stood, clad in slinky black, one hand resting elegantly on her hip, the other holding a cigarette from which a tendril of smoke wafted lazily upward.
‘Bit of a shock, darling? You’ve waited long enough, haven’t you? Though I suppose coming this late in life it’s a bit of a damp squib, the ardour gone off somewhat. I expect you lost all your get up and go long ago. Never mind, darling, better late than never. You’re still capable of doing a geriatric scramble over her, aren’t you? Or do you get too out of breath now?’
David ignored the crudeness, and said stiffly: ‘The divorce – when?’
‘Oh, any time, darling! As soon as you like. Aren’t you excited?’
She remained looking up, his silence causing her lips to compress. ‘Don’t you want to know what’s brought about my change of heart?’ she questioned sharply.
He longed to say ‘Not particularly’, but anything like that might make her change her mind. Unless she was merely taunting him, had no intention of letting go of him?
‘I shall tell you,’ she went on. ‘You see, ever since last year, your cousin Freddy and I have had something going. I bet you never even suspected. In fact, Freddy has proposed. Trouble is you’re rather in the way, darling. So, if you want your divorce, by all means. Although I’d rather it be me divorcing you, and naturally your Letitia will be cited as co-respondent. Those are my only terms. Oh, yes, and of course an adequate settlement from you.’
David’s thoughts flew immediately to the shares he held in Baron & Lampton’s. They belonged to Christopher. It was in his will and no one, not even Madge, could contest it. Once he and Letitia were married, Chris could fight off anyone who tried.
‘Whatever you like,’ he said harshly. ‘Except, of course, my shares in Baron & Lampton’s.’
Did he see her face drop a little? Even with her and Freddy’s share combined, they wouldn’t have a majority vote. And there was always the possibility that Freddy wouldn’t want to see the business go. But David was certain that above all else Madge would have liked to have seen him grovel, to see his fear of takeover. The business meant nothing to her. To him it meant everything – his father’s name, his son’s future, Letitia’s peace of mind. And she knew it.
He steeled himself against Madge’s withdrawing her magnanimous offer of divorce, but after a long tense pause, saw her shrug and relax, her face breaking again into that mocking smile.
‘That suits me,’ she said airily.
Why did he get the feeling there was something up her sleeve?
‘Do you love him? Freddy?’ he queried. She was only using his cousin, surely?
The softening look in her eyes, even from this distance, conveyed the complete opposite, a misty glow of love he had forgotten her to be capable of. The next moment her eyes had become veiled. She lifted one eyebrow very slightly.
‘Now why should you care, darling? You have what you’ve always wanted. Be satisfied.’
It was all too easy. She knew something he didn’t. Had she got to Robert Lampton? Robert hadn’t been too well lately, might very well be making an arrangement. He had no one else to leave his shares to – his wife died years ago and, David had been told, was never able to have children. That Robert didn’t like Madge meant nothing – blood was thicker than water. It seemed he’d have to keep an eye on Robert. With all these thoughts running through his head, David nodded tersely and turned towards his bedroom.
‘We’re in agreement then?’ her voice followed him. ‘I shall start divorce proceedings tomorrow?’ Again he nodded, went into his room and closed the door. Tomorrow he would tell Letitia the news. She would hardly believe it – this turn-around. He hardly believed it himself. One thing was certain: from tomorrow he would spend every day with Letitia, and that included spending the whole of Christmas with her.
Chapter Thirty
There was a gleam in Madge’s eyes these days whenever he came face to face with her – malevolent, taunting. Perhaps I know something you don’t, it intimated. You think you’re getting away with it, it challenged. Go and see my uncle. Suck up to him – if you can. You’ll get nothing out of him.
Robert Lampton, sitting up in bed in his rambling Victorian Middlesex mansion, looked waxy – an old age waxiness, eyes watery behind dusty spectacles, mouth sunken, teeth in a glass beside him. Like his home with its redundant gas mantles, thinning ca
rpets, dusty drapes, its great domed mirrors, huge dark pictures and high cobwebbed ceilings, he was of another age. But he was as welcoming and pleasant towards David as ever he’d been.
At seventy-three he had finally resigned his directorship – Babbington, the store’s Chief Buyer, and Taylor its General Manager, had been elected on to the Board at last year’s AGM. But Robert still held the shares that could give a majority vote to either David or Madge. With the perversity of old age, he evaded any query as to what he intended to do with them, and said to David in cracked cheery tones: ‘I’ll see the both of you all right when me time comes, me boy, don’t worry. Always been fair.’
The toothless smile of reassurance, David suspected, was the same as he’d given to Madge – insurance against any faltering in the loyalty to him which he seemed so much in need of, forcing each of them to visit him regularly once a week.
Meeting Madge by accident last week with that taunting gleam in her eyes, David hoped their visits wouldn’t clash this morning. He yearned to be away, on edge with nerves. You perverse old bugger, he thought, smiled, shook the narrow blue-veined hand, the old-man odour of the house following him as he left to go to see how the store was doing.
Like a man who fears he might be asked to bid farewell to a loving friend at any moment, David visited the emporium as regularly as he visited Robert Lampton. Wandering slowly, nostalgically, through its departments, he returned the friendly nods of the staff he passed, each time the knowledge that this could be the last time, knowing just how he’d feel when it finally came.
Every department was always bustling with customers. He strolled through the shop with an ache in his heart for what could so easily cease to be his as each floor manager came to greet him.
‘Good morning, sir!’
‘Good morning, Mr Seymour. How are things?’
‘Very well, sir. Thriving.’
‘Fine.’
‘Good morning, sir! Nice to see you here.’
‘Nice to be here, Mr Wells. Looks busy.’
‘Oh, it is, sir, it is!’
The cylindrical metal money boxes rattled as spring pulleys were tugged by sales assistants, whirring along overhead tramways to the cashier’s office behind its glass windows to be emptied, filled with whatever change was needed, the tops screwed back on to be whizzed back. A somewhat old-fashioned store but people loved it, didn’t want modern ways. They flocked in through the revolving doors, breathing in the welcome smell of this emporium as they entered – a smell of carpets, fabric and furniture. David took a deep breath, filling his own lungs with its nostalgia, and felt he could cry.
It seemed to be taking ages, solicitors’ letters passing to and fro. A simple case they’d said – no one contesting it. Solicitors, however, Letty concluded, never seemed to feel justified in earning their fees unless they were seen to earn it, and that meant reams of correspondence, wodges of Instructions to Counsel, Further Instructions and Affidavits, all held together by a myriad of rusting pins and cracked sealing wax, prevented from sliding out of scruffy beige files by a mile of faded pink tape. That was the way Letty saw it.
Always patient, David soothed her.
‘A couple more weeks, my sweet. Three at the most.’
‘It feels like three years!’ she moaned. It had been horrible to be termed ‘the Woman Named’. Made her feel dirty, unsavoury; made a sordid affair of her and David’s love for each other.
‘It’s already August,’ she went on angrily. ‘What the hell are they doing? If you ask me, she’s deliberately holding things up.’
David’s arm tightened encouragingly. ‘Be patient, darling.’
They sat on a bench under the trees of Kensington Gardens, glad of the shade. Couples and families strolled by, women and girls in bright summer dresses and wide hats, the men shirtsleeves and lightweight trilbies, braces on show, coats slung across their shoulders.
David leaned away to fish in his pocket for his cigarette case – the gold one she’d bought him two years ago for his birthday in March with his initials engraved on it.
Listlessly she watched him take out a cigarette. He smoked strong Players Navy Cut. As he lit up, she looked away towards a small cluster of pigeons, pink feet kicking up tiny puffs of dust as they plodded about in search of crumbs. At least the females were – indifferent to the males, pea brains still on sex, iridescent breasts puffed up while they warbled futilely.
Acrid smoke was floating by her face. Without switching her gaze, she knew it trickled lazily from his nostrils, its toxic enjoyment held in his lungs for as long as possible.
‘You smoke too much,’ she remarked, heard a small grunt of ironic acknowledgement escape him.
He knew he did. How could he not? She knew the tensions, felt them herself – waiting, waiting. She worried about the persistence of that pain he kept getting. All due to tension. Perhaps when this was over … Letty closed her eyes. Dear God, please let his divorce come soon.
The sun had moved round from the heavy summer foliage above them. Its warmth touched her short hair. She lifted her face to it, drank it in. Behind her the well-stocked flower beds wafted a scent of lavender and roses and the tangy perfume of the box hedge.
There was going to be a war. Everyone knew that now. No dodging it like last year. Hitler had made up his mind to march into Poland, and Britain had promised Poland its support. If Hitler did carry out his intentions, and there were no indications that he wouldn’t, then Britain would go to war.
Terrified, Letty saw the inescapability of conscription, had hoped that perhaps Chris’s job on the newspaper might make him exempt. But for all he was twenty-four, was engaged to be married, he still had that sense of adventure that had nearly got him into the Spanish venture.
‘If the balloon goes up, I’d much sooner volunteer than be called up,’ he’d told her last week – had then dropped his bombshell. ‘I’ve already written off applying to train as a pilot in the RAF.’
She’d been terrified all right. Had burst out, ‘Chris! No!’
‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ he’d told her, his clean-cut handsome features only concerned that she was fearful for him.
‘But what about Eileen?’ she had gasped.
‘She understands,’ he’d said. ‘I’d be called up anyway if there is a war. Everyone will. And I’d love to fly. I’m waiting to hear from them. I’ve had a university education so I’m bound to be accepted.’
He had decided to postpone his wedding for the time being – much against the wishes of Eileen and her family – this when hundreds of couples were rushing headlong into marriage as though it were their last ever chance before the balloon did go up.
As August moved towards its close, everywhere there was this haste, this rush to do things that for years had been left undone. The whole country was in flux as September arrived and Hitler marched on into Poland, cocking a snook at the British Government. Troops commandeered nearly all the trains. If it wasn’t troops, it was children – hordes of them evacuated out of the city, from the vulnerable East End with its industry and its docks, into the country away from the bombing that everyone knew would come.
Anderson shelters, named after Sir John Anderson who had designed them, were being delivered to be installed in suburban gardens. Lucy told Letty that they had paid a man to put theirs in, and were building a rockery over it to try to make it look a bit more presentable.
In town brick public shelters were being constructed on any odd piece of ground. All done at a frantic pace, giving the feeling of life as they knew it coming to an end. Letty, quite expecting to see those down-at-heel sandwich men on every street corner, boards displaying the words: beware – THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH! was surprised to see so few. Two days later, it felt her world was indeed coming to an end.
On Sunday morning, with Chris standing by the window, she and David on the sofa, they listened to the radiogram. She felt David’s hands come over hers and grip convulsively. She smiled at him, trying to
make it encouraging even as he tried to encourage her while from the radiogram droned the sad, flat, disillusioned voice of Chamberlain telling them the country was at war with Germany.
His voice dying away, the National Anthem swelled from the fretted loudspeaker of the radiogram in an almost desperate crashing crescendo of national pride. As one Letty and David stood up, her hand in his, Letty’s chin held high, her eyes on Chris in a silent prayer for his safety.
Wordlessly her tall handsome son gazed back at her, his dark eyes concealing what he was thinking. And she couldn’t ask. She merely murmured, ‘All right, Chris?’ saw him nod slowly and went to distract herself by putting on the kettle for a much needed cup of tea.
It had hardly started to steam when in the distance came a strange eerie wailing, rising and falling at slow regular intervals.
‘Air raid!’ The words were wrenched from her. Turning off the kettle, virtually yanking its plug from the socket, she hurried into the sitting room to stare helplessly at David.
Instantly he took charge, ushering her and Chris ahead of him downstairs to the closed gallery and through the door to the cellar below, already shored up against the bombs that could be falling seconds from now.
Half an hour later they were back upstairs, laughing with relief as the sweet single note of the All Clear shivered the air over the City. Within seconds the telephone was ringing, Lucy’s voice near to panic as it always was in any crisis. Lucy, twice a grandmother, was still as highly strung as ever she’d been as a youngster.
‘Oh, Letty! It’s dreadful. My daughter’s husbands – if they’re called up. Them with young children too. And an air raid only a few moments ago.’
