A Fragile Peace

  She shrugged. ‘Yes.’

  George was in full swing now, and not to be stopped. ‘He refuses point blank to co-operate with the Joint Production Committee – calls it an “imperialist tool”. More of his damned jargon. The man needs to be shown who’s master—’

  ‘George, he knows who’s master.’ Allie had snapped the words before she could prevent herself. ‘How could he not? The problem is that he doesn’t like who’s master…’ And neither do I, said the unspoken words, doing nothing to lessen the hostile atmosphere in the darkening room. ‘I’m not defending the man. I’m saying that you handle him badly. He isn’t always wrong.’

  Robert looked from his daughter to his nephew, sighing, and remained silent.

  George, with real dignity, smoothed his already smooth hair and picked up his black Homburg. ‘Clearly, Allie, we are never going to agree about this – as, I am forced to say, we do not agree about most things. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Alistair MacKenzie should be dismissed from the company’s service. And I can only suggest that it would be more fitting for you to consider the well-being of Jordan Industries and of your country before any other – misjudged – allegiances you may have acquired.’

  ‘For God’s sake, George, that’s what I am doing! The Coventry works’ll collapse into bloody chaos if you try to sack him, can’t you see that? The workers simply won’t let him go.’

  The pained look on her cousin’s face at her unladylike language caught her suddenly and unexpectedly between a furious need to throw the ink pot at his pompous head and an equally strong desire to burst out laughing. She subsided. ‘I’m sorry, George, I really am. But you’re wrong about this, and I’m not going to let you do it. I know MacKenzie’s a thorn in your side – how the dickens do you think I feel about him? But you have to accept the fact that he has the support – the admiration even – of his workmates.’ She ignored the smothered, derisive sound that George made. ‘In 1940, when Coventry was blitzed and half the workforce lost their homes and some of them their families, who helped them? Who set up the relief fund? Who administered it? You? Me? The local authority?’ She waited.

  George cleared his throat. ‘I’m not denying that the man—’

  ‘No. MacKenzie did. In all that shambles he organized food, shelter, welfare – his mates don’t forget that. Nor have they forgot that he was campaigning against long exhausting shifts well before it became fashionable to call them counter-productive. George, why do you think MacKenzie survived your attempt to have him put in prison under good old Regulation 18B? Because his mates wouldn’t have it, that’s why. And they won’t let him go now.’

  George could not keep silent. ‘Exactly. Anarchy! I will not be dictated to by a bunch of louts. If we lose the right to manage our own affairs, we lose everything. MacKenzie’s a rabble-rouser…’

  ‘Agreed. He’s also an extremely clever young man.’

  George looked at her coolly for a long, silent moment. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, quietly, but with significant emphasis. ‘He is. Sometimes I think you forget that.’

  She bit her lip, fighting rising anger again. ‘I can handle him.’

  ‘I hope so. I truly hope so.’ His point made, George made as if to leave. ‘The committee meets next Thursday. I trust you’ll be there?’

  Allie nodded.

  ‘Perhaps by then Mr MacKenzie will be in a more amenable frame of mind. Though I am bound to say that I doubt it. As far as I’m concerned the JPC is a thoroughgoing waste of everyone’s time…’

  ‘A point of view that you share with friend MacKenzie,’ Allie could not resist pointing out, sweet reason in her voice. ‘Could that be why the Coventry shop is the only place that the system isn’t working relatively well?’

  George turned to the door without answering. ‘I have to go. I’m meeting Benson at the club in half an hour. Goodbye, Uncle Robert. Allie, I’ll see you on Thursday.’

  Allie silently pulled a satisfyingly childish face at his impeccable, departing back. Robert saw his nephew to the door, closed it quietly behind him and stood wordless, surveying his daughter, who had turned back to the window. She ignored the silence for as long as she could, then turned to face him, lifting helpless, apologetic hands, her face a picture of exasperation. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said with little trace of repentance in her voice. ‘I really thought that meeting him here might help.’ She smiled half-heartedly. ‘I should have known better.’

  Robert walked to a heavy mahogany cabinet that housed several display shelves of cut glasses. The shelves designed to hold bottles were empty but for one half-full bottle of whisky. ‘Drink?’

  ‘No, thanks. You have one though.’ Allie wandered to her father’s desk, perched upon it, one wedge-heeled foot swinging, her fingers drumming the polished wood.

  Robert splashed a careful amount into the bottom of a glass. ‘With the world in the state it is,’ he said ruefully, ‘you’d think that I wouldn’t greatly care that this is the last of the malt.’

  Allie smiled. ‘Libby’s got some. God knows where from. But it’s the real stuff. I’ll smile nicely at her for you if you want.’

  ‘Please.’ Robert swirled the drink, lifted it, savouring the bouquet before he drank. ‘How is she?’

  ‘She’s OK. Same as ever. Except –’ she paused ‘– well, you know, she really hates the Japanese. Far more than the Germans. She thinks they may be mistreating Edward. The stories you hear…’

  Robert took a precious mouthful of Scotch, held it for a moment on his tongue, his face thoughtful. ‘You know that Edward almost certainly must be dead?’ he asked at last, quietly. ‘It’s been more than a year with no word.’

  ‘Yes. I do know. But Libby simply won’t have it. She’s absolutely convinced herself that he’s still alive. That he’ll come back.’

  ‘Yes. Well…’ Sad shadows flickered in her father’s face. ‘There’s little we can do to help her yet. She has to come to terms with it in her own time. Now – what about your problems? Is MacKenzie really as bad as he sounds?’

  ‘Worse!’ She pulled a ferociously glum face. ‘He’s an absolute pain. But then,’ she added uncharitably, ‘so’s George. The two of them are at each other’s throats the whole time.’ She slipped from the desk, pulled up a chair and sat in it, her elbows on the desk, a heavy wave of brown hair shadowing a face that had thinned and strengthened to a striking degree in the past year. ‘It’s like mediating between Custer and the Indians. And just guess who keeps getting the tomahawk in her scalp? You know what my first priority was when I took this job? To get management and workers talking to each other reasonably, instead of fighting like cats and dogs over every little problem. In every other machine shop and factory in Jordan Industries, we’ve more or less done it – oh, I’m not saying we have no problems; when was the engineering industry ever without problems? – but by and large, Jordan’s is establishing a damned good industrial relations record. It helps that we’re small, of course, and that quite a few of our workers have been with us for a long time. The Production Committees are working well, the welfare officers – though I don’t deny they’re still rather resented as busybodies by some of the workforce – are doing a good job. Except at Coventry. And there, thanks about equally to George and to Mr Bloody-Minded MacKenzie, we’ve got a permanent war on our hands that’d take the Eighth Army, Monty and all, to sort out.’

  ‘What’s MacKenzie actually like? What’s his background?’

  Allie thought for a moment. ‘He gives the impression of having drunk in militant trade unionism with his mother’s milk. He’s from Clydeside. As a boy he was involved with the apprentices’ strikes of ’37, I think…’

  ‘Ah.’ Robert’s face dropped.

  ‘Exactly. I strongly suspect that he came south and joined us specifically to organize the Coventry shop – though he’d deny it, of course. He’s an extremely intelligent and rather terrifying young man who can run rings round George – and more often than not,’ she ad
ded honestly, ‘round me too.’ She leaned her chin upon her hand. ‘I truly don’t understand why so much of politics has to be so extreme. With George on one side and MacKenzie on the other, how’s anything ever going to get done? George would preserve the status quo while the ship sinks under him and the water laps his ears—’

  ‘And MacKenzie?’

  ‘I told you. He’s a Trotskyist. A revolutionary. But, to his credit, he has stuck to a road that’s been hard sometimes, what with the Communists blowing hot and cold. His view is the same as it has always been. His allegiance is not to the Party, nor to Russia, nor to us, but to his class, his fellow-workers. As far as he’s concerned, he’s fighting the same battle now as was fought – and lost – through the Twenties and the Thirties, and that will be fought again when this little spot of international unpleasantness is over. You have to give the man his due: it hasn’t always been an easy stand to take. He sees not a war for national survival but an opportunity offered by full employment – even a shortage of workers in some areas – to improve the lot of his people beyond the point where any gains that are made can be easily taken from them the minute the war stops. As happened in 1918. To be honest, I believe that, if MacKenzie ever found himself faced with a Fascist regime, he’d fight them with the same dedication.’ She leaned back a little tiredly, shook her hair out and ran her fingers through it. ‘How does it feel to be the lesser of two evils?’

  ‘A Fascist regime would stand him up against a wall and shoot him.’

  ‘True. But then, so would Cousin George if he could.’ She grinned, briefly. ‘Me too, sometimes.’

  Her father was watching her, curiosity in his face. ‘Yet I get the feeling that you aren’t entirely unsympathetic to this young man?’

  She considered that for a moment. ‘MacKenzie? No. He’s a fanatic, and I very much dislike fanatics. He’s cold and calculating, and I honestly don’t think I’ve found the tiniest human failing to recommend him. But I think he has something of a case, yes. You know as well as I do what happened after the last war: Thanks, lads, and back on the dole. A world fit for heroes, indeed! And you also know that a lot of industrialists took a very foolish public stand not so very long before this war broke out: anti-socialist, anti-union, pro-Fascist, even. And people don’t forget just because someone’s bombing them; well – not people like MacKenzie, anyway.’

  ‘He really sees things that black and white?’

  ‘He really does.’ She stood up. ‘Alistair MacKenzie is so far to the left that he thinks the Beveridge Plan’s a right-wing ploy.’ She laughed again. ‘And to show you what I’m up against, George thinks it’s a left-wing takeover and swears he’ll never pay another penny of tax if it’s adopted!’

  ‘And you? What do you think?’

  ‘About Beveridge?’ Allie, thoughtful, picked up a pair of neatly darned gloves and a rather battered leather handbag. ‘I think it would be a start. An essential start. And I think Churchill’s being rather short-sighted in not seeing the enthusiasm of ordinary people for the proposals. They’ll remember it later, I think – his lukewarm attitude – after the war, when we go back to proper elections.’

  ‘You surely don’t agree with the people who say that Labour would win?’

  She shrugged. ‘Who knows? Stranger things have happened. All right – people now are simply concerned with winning the war, understandably. But later? I don’t think that even Beveridge himself realized the popular support his plan would get. It’s significant – well, I think so, anyway.’ She dropped a quick kiss on his cheek. ‘I’ll see you next week. I’ll be in Coventry from Tuesday to Friday – you can contact me there if you need me.’

  ‘Fine.’ He walked her to the door, but before he opened it, he took her hand in his. ‘Allie – you’re all right? All this isn’t too much for you?’

  She smiled, shook her head. ‘I love it. Most of it, anyway.’

  ‘Give or take MacKenzie?’

  ‘To be truthful – give or take George.’ She raised rueful eyebrows. ‘I have to keep reminding myself that we’re on the same side!’ She kissed him again lightly. ‘Give my love to Mother – tell her I’ll see her next weekend.’

  * * *

  The rain hung like a sodden curtain across the darkening streets. She hesitated on the kerb, contemplating the possibility of finding a taxi, but in a moment, more or less philosophically, turned up her collar against the weather and set off for the nearest Underground station. With the arrival of the well-paid, open-handed GI in war-deprived London, an empty taxi-cab – together with most other luxuries – had become a thing of fond memories. Strap-hanging in the noisy tube train, she ran over the recent meeting in her mind, the recollection of her cousin’s neatly handsome features and crisp, over-confident voice goading her, as always, to that ready antagonism that is strongest between people of blood relationship and totally opposite interests and temperament. She sighed, and changed hands. The train rattled, swaying, through the dark tunnels, and then stopped, the dim lights flickering.

  ‘’Ere we go again,’ said someone.

  Allie leaned, swinging slightly, stiff-armed, on the strap, musing. It would not be so bad, she felt, if she had not been so absolutely certain that George’s refusal to take her, her ideas or her abilities seriously stemmed not so much from that childhood bag of toads as from the simple – and irrelevant – fact that she was a woman. To George, the advent of a female into his working life, into the sacred world of boardrooms and business meetings, had been nothing less than an outrage. He had managed bravely to come to terms with women on the engineering shop floor, with women operating London’s ack-ack guns, indeed with women taking over all manner of heavy and unpleasant jobs and doing them well. But war or no war, there were, in George’s opinion, standards to be maintained, and a woman in management was, in his often-expressed view, taking things too far. That this was one of the few opinions that he shared with the odious MacKenzie made Allie’s life no easier, and while she appreciated the irony of that, it did not exactly amuse her.

  In one of her first battles with George – over his arbitrary sacking of any woman worker who smoked, wore trousers or used strong language – MacKenzie had refused, laconically, to back her up. He had even, Allie was certain, extracted a good deal of enjoyment from the sight of two Jordans battling in public over an issue he clearly and contemptuously considered beneath him. She wondered what his attitude would be now that those same women had been accepted into a union that, up to a couple of months before, had resolutely refused to have them.

  Oddly, it had been that fight – which she had resoundingly won – that had given Allie her first faint insight into MacKenzie’s own uncompromising attitudes. He knew from bitter experience that the egalitarian camaraderie of war would not last any longer than it took for the ink to dry on the documents of peace. He knew that hard-won advantages – full employment, steady wages, reasonable conditions – could disappear overnight and, in a bright new world, unemployment, homelessness and hardship be the lot not just of the workers who had stayed in the factories, but of the homecoming men who had been expected to offer even more than their labour to ensure their country’s victory. And he would allow nothing to stand in the way of consolidating those victories that a hard-pressed, understaffed industry had to concede in order to keep the war machine rolling.

  To Allie, very often, the man’s inflexible refusal to take into account what seemed to her to be the realities of the situation – young men like Buzz grounded for want of aircraft while men like MacKenzie fought a wage claim; the Eighth Army, gallant, dogged, victorious, desperately in need of tanks, guns and ammunition; the need to defend a democratic way of life, however imperfect, from the grasping claws of Fascism – was abhorrent. Yet when she heard open preaching against the acceptance of women into a trade union, when she heard of a woman doing a man’s job for half the wage, or of a woman refused training for fear her skill might compete with a man’s, she felt a stirring of fellow-feeling fo
r MacKenzie’s single-mindedness. She accepted that most women would not wish to stay at work once the war was over. But what of those who did? What of the widows, mothers, daughters, whose men had been killed and who would be denied the right to earn a decent living for themselves? What of those who did not want to give up the independence, the prospect of self-determination that their work had, for the first time, given them? What, indeed, of herself? Could she face the thought of anything less challenging than her present employment? How many others felt the same way? And what could they do about it when the future of their jobs was protected neither by employer nor by union?

  The train jerked forward, surprising her out of her reverie. She was astonished to find that her eyelids had drooped and she had almost been asleep on her feet. A soldier sitting not far from her, his kitbag between his knees, grinned sympathetically.

  ‘Here you are, love. I’m getting out at the next stop.’

  Gratefully she subsided into the warm seat. Three more stops and she’d be there. And Libby’s flat, thank the Lord, was only a step from the station. It amused her to discover that she still thought of the home that she had shared with her sister for more than a year as ‘Libby’s flat’.

  The train clanked to a halt again, hummed agitatedly, pulled off once more.

  ‘Blessed thing,’ grumbled the woman next to Allie.

  ‘Air raid up top, I expect,’ another voice said.

  ‘We’re in the best place, then.’

  ‘Don’t you bank on that. You hear what happened over at Bethnal Green the other day?’

  Allie made a conscious effort to stop listening. She could not stand to hear yet another version of the persistent rumour of a terrible accident on the staircase of an East End station during the panic of a tip-and-run raid. Some reports said that two hundred people had died, trampled and crushed as shelterers had fled into the station just as the packed trains had disgorged their rush-hour crowds. She found the thought particularly appalling and – in common with many other Londoners – she found it haunted her every time she put her foot on a steep and crowded Underground stairway. The incident had not been reported in the newspapers, but by word of mouth the story had spread like wildfire across the city, too obstinately often repeated to be ignored or dismissed.