by Ken Follett
Right now he was mainly worried about his parents. Bernie was so proud of having a stepson at Cambridge – he had told half the East End – and he would be devastated if Lloyd left before getting his degree. Ethel would be frightened that her son might be wounded or killed. They would both be terribly upset.
There were other issues. How would he get to Spain? What city would he go to? How would he pay the fare? But only one snag really gave him pause.
Daisy Peshkov.
He told himself not to be ridiculous. He had met her twice. She was not even very interested in him. That was smart of her, because they were ill-suited. She was a millionaire’s daughter and a shallow socialite who thought talking about politics was dull. She liked men such as Boy Fitzherbert: that alone proved she was wrong for Lloyd. Yet he could not get her out of his mind, and the thought of going to Spain and losing all chance of seeing her again filled him with sadness.
Mayfair two four three four.
He felt ashamed of his hesitation, especially when he recalled Lenny’s simple determination. Lloyd had been talking about fighting Fascism for years. Now there was a chance to do it. How could he not go?
He reached London’s Paddington Station, took the Tube to Aldgate, and walked to the row house in Nutley Street where he had been born. He let himself in with his own key. The place had not changed much since he was a child, but one innovation was the telephone on a little table next to the hat stand. It was the only phone in the street, and the neighbours treated it as public property. Beside the phone was a box in which they placed the money for their calls.
His mother was in the kitchen. She had her hat on, ready to go out to address a Labour Party meeting – what else? – but she put the kettle on and made him tea. ‘How are they all in Aberowen?’ she asked.
‘Uncle Billy is there this weekend,’ he said. ‘All the neighbours came into Granda’s kitchen. It’s like a medieval court.’
‘Are your grandparents well?’
‘Granda is the same as ever. Grandmam looks older.’ He paused. ‘Lenny Griffiths wants to go to Spain, to fight the Fascists.’
She pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘Does he, now?’
‘I’m considering going with him. What do you think?’
He was expecting opposition, but even so her reaction surprised him. ‘Don’t you bloody dare,’ she said savagely. She did not share her mother’s aversion to swear words. ‘Don’t even speak of it!’ She slammed the teapot down on the kitchen table. ‘I bore you in pain and suffering, and raised you, and put shoes on your feet and sent you to school, and I didn’t go through all that for you to throw your life away in a bloody war!’
He was taken aback. ‘I wasn’t thinking of throwing my life away,’ he said. ‘But I might risk it in a cause you brought me up to believe in.’
To his astonishment she began to sob. She rarely cried – in fact, Lloyd could not remember the last time.
‘Mother, don’t.’ He put his arm around her shaking shoulders. ‘It hasn’t happened yet.’
Bernie came into the kitchen, a stocky middle-aged man with a bald dome. ‘What’s all this?’ he said. He looked a bit scared.
Lloyd said: ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I’ve upset her.’ He stepped back and let Bernie put his arms around Ethel.
She wailed: ‘He’s going to Spain! He’ll be killed!’
‘Let’s all calm down and discuss it sensibly,’ Bernie said. He was a sensible man wearing a sensible dark suit and much-repaired shoes with sensible thick soles. No doubt that was why people voted for him: he was a local politician, representing Aldgate on the London County Council. Lloyd had never known his own father, but he could not imagine loving a real father more than he loved Bernie, who had been a gentle stepfather, quick to comfort and advise, slow to command or punish. He treated Lloyd no differently from his daughter, Millie.
Bernie persuaded Ethel to sit at the kitchen table, and Lloyd poured her a cup of tea.
‘I thought my brother was dead, once,’ Ethel said, her tears still flowing. ‘The telegrams came to Wellington Row, and the wretched boy from the post office had to go from one house to the next, giving men and women the bits of paper that said their sons and husbands were dead. Poor lad, what was his name? Geraint, I think. But he didn’t have a telegram for our house and, wicked woman that I am, I thanked God it was others that had died and not our Billy!’
‘You’re not a wicked woman,’ Bernie said, patting her.
Lloyd’s half-sister, Millie, appeared from upstairs. She was sixteen, but looked older, especially dressed as she was this evening, in a stylish black outfit and small gold earrings. For two years she had worked in a women’s wear shop in Aldgate, but she was bright and ambitious, and in the last few days she had got a job in a swanky West End department store. She looked at Ethel and said: ‘Mam, what’s the matter?’ She spoke with a Cockney accent.
‘Your brother wants to go to Spain and get himself killed!’ Ethel cried.
Millie looked accusingly at Lloyd. ‘What have you been saying to her?’ Millie was always quick to find fault with her older brother, whom she felt was undeservedly adored.
Lloyd responded with fond tolerance. ‘Lenny Griffiths from Aberowen is going to fight the Fascists, and I told Mam I was thinking about going with him.’
‘Trust you,’ Millie said disgustedly.
‘I doubt if you can get there,’ said Bernie, ever practical. ‘After all, the country is in the middle of a civil war.’
‘I can get a train to Marseilles. Barcelona’s not far from the French border.’
‘Eighty or ninety miles. And it’s a cold walk over the Pyrenees.’
‘There must be ships going from Marseilles to Barcelona. It’s not so far by sea.’
‘True.’
‘Stop it, Bernie!’ Ethel cried. ‘You sound as if you’re discussing the quickest way to Piccadilly Circus. He’s talking about going to war! I won’t allow it.’
‘He’s twenty-one, you know,’ Bernie said. ‘We can’t stop him.’
‘I know how bloody old he is!’
Bernie looked at his watch. ‘We need to get to the meeting. You’re the main speaker. And Lloyd’s not going to Spain tonight.’
‘How do you know?’ she said. ‘We might get home and find a note saying he’s caught the boat train to Paris!’
‘I tell you what,’ said Bernie. ‘Lloyd, promise your mother you won’t go for a month at least. It’s not a bad idea anyway – you need to check the lie of the land before you rush off. Set her mind at ease, just temporarily. Then we can talk about it again.’
It was a typical Bernie compromise, calculated to let everyone back off without backing down; but Lloyd was reluctant to make a commitment. On the other hand, he probably could not simply jump on a train. He had to find out what arrangements the Spanish government might be making to receive volunteers. Ideally, he would go in company with Lenny and others. He would need visas, foreign currency, a pair of boots . . . ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I won’t go for a month.’
‘Promise,’ his mother said.
‘I promise.’
Ethel became calm. After a minute she powdered her face and looked more normal. She drank her tea.
Then she put her coat on, and she and Bernie left.
‘Right, I’m off too,’ said Millie.
‘Where are you going?’ Lloyd asked her.
‘The Gaiety.’
It was a music hall in the East End. ‘Do they let sixteen-year-olds in?’
She gave him an arch look. ‘Who’s sixteen? Not me. Anyway, Dave’s going and he’s only fifteen.’ She was speaking of their cousin David Williams, son of Uncle Billy and Aunt Mildred.
‘Well, enjoy yourselves.’
She went to the door and came back. ‘Just don’t get killed in Spain, you stupid sod.’ She put her arms around him and hugged him hard, then went out without saying any more.
When he heard the front door slam, he went to the phone.
He did not have to think to recall the number. He could see Daisy in his mind’s eye, turning as she left him, smiling winningly under the straw hat, saying: ‘Mayfair two four three four.’
He picked up the phone and dialled.
What was he going to say? ‘You told me to phone, so here I am.’ That was feeble. The truth? ‘I don’t admire you at all, but I can’t get you off my mind.’ He should invite her to something, but what? A Labour Party meeting?
A man answered. ‘This is Mrs Peshkov’s residence. Good evening.’ The deferential tone made Lloyd think he was a butler. No doubt Daisy’s mother had rented a London house complete with staff.
‘This is Lloyd Williams . . .’ He wanted to say something that would explain or justify his call, and he added the first thing that came to mind: ‘. . . of Emmanuel College.’ It meant nothing but he hoped it sounded impressive. ‘May I speak to Miss Daisy Peshkov?’
‘No, I’m sorry, Professor Williams,’ said the butler, assuming Lloyd must be a don. ‘They’ve all gone to the opera.’
Of course, Lloyd thought with disappointment. No socialite was home at this time of the evening, especially on a Saturday. ‘I remember,’ he lied. ‘She told me she was going, and I forgot. Covent Garden, isn’t it?’ He held his breath.
But the butler was not suspicious. ‘Yes, sir. The Magic Flute, I believe.’
‘Thank you.’ Lloyd hung up.
He went to his room and changed. In the West End most people wore evening dress, even to go to the cinema. But what would he do when he got there? He could not afford a ticket to the opera, and anyway it would be over soon.
He took the Tube. The Royal Opera House was incongruously located next to Covent Garden, London’s wholesale fruit and vegetable market. The two institutions got along well because they kept different hours: the market opened for business at three or four o’clock in the morning, when London’s most determined revellers were beginning to head for home; and it closed before the matinee.
Lloyd walked past the shuttered stalls of the market and looked through glazed doors into the opera house. Its bright lobby was empty, and he could hear muffled Mozart. He stepped inside. Adopting a careless upper-class manner, he said to an attendant: ‘What time does the curtain come down?’
If he had been wearing his tweed suit he would probably have been told that it was none of his business, but the dinner jacket was the uniform of authority, and the attendant said: ‘In about five minutes, sir.’
Lloyd nodded curtly. To say ‘Thank you’ would have given him away.
He left the building and walked around the block. It was a moment of quiet. In the restaurants, people were ordering coffee; in the cinemas, the big feature was approaching its melodramatic climax. Everything would change soon, and the streets would be thronged with people shouting for taxis, heading to nightclubs, kissing goodbye at bus stops, and hurrying for the last train back to the suburbs.
He returned to the opera house and went inside. The orchestra was silent, and the audience was just beginning to emerge. Released from long imprisonment in their seats they were talking animatedly, praising the singers, criticizing the costumes, and making plans for late suppers.
He saw Daisy almost immediately.
She was wearing a lavender dress with a little cape of champagne-coloured mink over her bare shoulders, and she looked ravishing. She emerged from the auditorium at the head of a small clutch of people her own age. Lloyd was sorry to recognize Boy Fitzherbert beside her, and to see her laugh gaily at something he murmured to her as they stepped down the red-carpeted stairs. Behind her was the interesting German girl, Eva Rothmann, escorted by a tall young man in the kind of military evening dress known as a mess kit.
Eva recognized Lloyd and smiled, and he spoke to her in German. ‘Good evening, Fräulein Rothmann, I hope you enjoyed the opera.’
‘Very much, thank you,’ she replied in the same language. ‘I didn’t realize you were in the audience.’
Boy said amiably: ‘I say, speak English, you lot.’ He sounded slightly drunk. He was good-looking in a dissipated way, like a sulkily handsome adolescent, or a pedigree dog that is fed too many scraps. He had a pleasant manner, and probably could be devastatingly charming when he chose.
Eva said in English: ‘Viscount Aberowen, this is Mr Williams.’
‘We know each other,’ said Boy. ‘He’s at Emma.’
Daisy said: ‘Hello, Lloyd. We’re going slumming.’
Lloyd had heard this word before. It meant going to the East End to visit low pubs and watch working-class entertainment such as dog fights.
Boy said: ‘I bet Williams knows some places.’
Lloyd hesitated only a fraction of a second. Was he willing to put up with Boy in order to be with Daisy? Of course he was. ‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to show you?’
‘Splendid!’
An older woman appeared and wagged a finger at Boy. ‘You must have these girls home by midnight,’ she said in an American accent. ‘Not a second later, please.’ Lloyd guessed she must be Daisy’s mother.
The tall man in the military outfit replied: ‘Leave it to the army, Mrs Peshkov. We’ll be on time.’
Behind Mrs Peshkov came Earl Fitzherbert with a fat woman who must be his wife. Lloyd would have liked to question the earl about his government’s policy on Spain.
Two cars were waiting for them outside. The earl, his wife, and Daisy’s mother got into a black-and-cream Rolls-Royce Phantom III. Boy and his group piled into the other car, a dark-blue Daimler E20 limousine, the royal family’s favourite car. There were seven young people including Lloyd. Eva seemed to be with the soldier, who introduced himself to Lloyd as Lieutenant Jimmy Murray. The third girl was his sister, May, and the other boy – a slimmer, quieter version of Boy – turned out to be Andy Fitzherbert.
Lloyd gave the chauffeur directions to the Gaiety.
He noticed that Jimmy Murray discreetly slipped his arm around Eva’s waist. Her reaction was to move slightly closer to him: obviously they were courting. Lloyd was happy for her. She was not a pretty girl, but she was intelligent and charming. He liked her, and he was glad she had found herself a tall soldier. He wondered, though, how others in this upper-class social set would react if Jimmy announced he was going to marry a half-Jewish German girl.
It occurred to him that the others formed two more couples: Andy and May, and – annoyingly – Boy and Daisy. Lloyd was the odd one out. Not wanting to stare at them, he studied the polished mahogany window surrounds.
The car went up Ludgate Hill to St Paul’s Cathedral. ‘Take Cheapside,’ Lloyd said to the driver.
Boy took a long pull from a silver hip flask. Wiping his mouth, he said: ‘You know your way around, Williams.’
‘I live here,’ said Lloyd. ‘I was born in the East End.’
‘How splendid,’ said Boy; and Lloyd was not sure whether he was being thoughtlessly polite or unpleasantly sarcastic.
All the seats were taken at the Gaiety, but there was plenty of standing room, and the audience moved around constantly, greeting friends and going to the bar. They were dressed up, the women in brightly coloured frocks, the men in their best suits. The air was warm and smoky, and there was a powerful odour of spilled beer. Lloyd found a place for his group near the back. Their clothes identified them as visitors from the West End, but they were not the only ones: music halls were popular with all classes.
On stage a middle-aged performer in a red dress and blonde wig was doing a double-entendre routine. ‘I said to him, “I’m not letting you into my passage.” ’ The audience roared with laughter. ‘He said to me, “I can see it from here, love.” I told him, “You keep your nose out.” ’ She was pretending indignation. ‘He said, “It looks to me like it needs a good clean-out.” Well! I ask you.’
Lloyd saw that Daisy was grinning widely. He leaned over and murmured in her ear: ‘Do you realize it’s a man?’
‘No!’ she
said.
‘Look at the hands.’
‘Oh, my God!’ she said. ‘She’s a man!’
Lloyd’s cousin David walked past, spotted Lloyd, and came back. ‘What are you all dressed up for?’ he said in a Cockney accent. He was wearing a knotted scarf and a cloth cap.
‘Hello, Dave, how’s life?’
‘I’m going to Spain with you and Lenny Griffiths,’ Dave said.
‘No, you’re not,’ said Lloyd. ‘You’re fifteen.’
‘Boys my age fought in the Great War.’
‘But they were no use – ask your father. Anyway, who says I’m going?’
‘Your sister, Millie,’ Dave said, and he walked on.
Boy said: ‘What do people usually drink in this place, Williams?’
Lloyd thought Boy did not need any more alcohol, but he replied: ‘Pints of best bitter for the men and port-and-lemon for the girls.’
‘Port-and-lemon?’
‘It’s port diluted with lemonade.’
‘How perfectly ghastly.’ Boy disappeared.
The comedian reached the climax of the act. ‘I said to him, “You fool, that’s the wrong passage !” ’ She, or he, went off to gales of applause.
Millie appeared in front of Lloyd. ‘Hello,’ she said. She looked at Daisy. ‘Who’s your friend?’
Lloyd was glad Millie looked so pretty, in her sophisticated black dress, with a row of fake pearls and a discreet touch of make-up. He said: ‘Miss Peshkov, allow me to present my sister, Miss Leckwith. Millie, this is Daisy.’
They shook hands. Daisy said: ‘I’m very glad to meet Lloyd’s sister.’
‘Half-sister, to be exact,’ said Millie.
Lloyd explained: ‘My father was killed in the Great War. I never knew him. My mother married again when I was still a baby.’
‘Enjoy the show,’ Millie said, turning away; then, as she left, she murmured to Lloyd: ‘Now I see why Ruby Carter has no chance.’
Lloyd groaned inwardly. His mother had obviously told the whole family that he was romancing Ruby.
Daisy said: ‘Who’s Ruby Carter?’
‘She’s a maid at Chimbleigh. You gave her the money to see a dentist.’
