by Juliet West
Tom drew in a sharp breath. Hazel couldn’t be blamed for her reaction – yes, the letter had been wrong, it had been hurtful and destructive – yet it pained him to hear his mother described in such terms when she had simply been over-protective. She wasn’t twisted or malicious. She was jealous, that was true, but jealous only of his well-being and his happiness.
‘There were reasons behind it –’ he began to say, but Hazel wasn’t listening. She was talking about Lucia, how possessive she could be, sulky if she didn’t get her own way.
‘Lucia must have been desperate to separate us,’ said Hazel. ‘And you fighting for the communists, too. Did she sign with a false name? Or anonymously?’
The realization hit. Tom opened his mouth to speak and then took a gulp of beer. Hazel thought that Lucia had sent the letter to Albacete. She’d taken ‘home’ to mean London, England, not Boone Street, Lewisham.
He should interrupt now, set the record straight.
Yet what did he owe to Lucia? Lucia, who had ratted on her supposed friend when the police came calling. Lucia, who had claimed credit when Hazel saved the drowning boy. Lucia, whom Hazel already hated. Why bring his mother into it, when Hazel had satisfied herself with a perfectly feasible explanation?
Tom reached out and took Hazel’s hand across the table. ‘We needn’t ever speak of it again. I should have been more trusting. It’s my fault. I should have believed in you, not some daft letter.’
She sighed and raised the port glass to her mouth. Tom watched as she swallowed. When she set the glass back on the table her lips glistened deep red.
‘It doesn’t matter anyway,’ said Hazel. ‘All that matters is Jasmin.’
‘Of course.’ His mind returned to the darkened ward, the still body in the hospital bed. ‘Jasmin.’
Hazel’s fingers tightened around his, and he closed his eyes, wishing with all his being that there might be a God to hear his prayer.
38
On the day of the wedding they drive into Soho, to Baudin’s where the wine cellar is still stocked with champagne and the kitchen serves an excellent steak tartare. They park on Romilly Street. A working girl stares from a high window as they step from the Brough onto the pavement: Charles in his white tails and Francine in a black Schiaparelli embroidered with large white lilies.
Inside the club, no heads turn. To be overdressed on a Saturday afternoon? There are stranger sights in this louche basement: a stocky man in a sequinned leotard, a woman with one breast spilling from a too-tight bustier.
The champagne is poured by the sommelier himself, his small hand firm against the ice-wet bottle. Charles raises his glass, meets Francine’s mid-air.
‘To the Uninvited,’ he says.
‘The Uninvited.’
Their glasses chink. The band strikes up a rhumba.
They dance and they dance, fuelled by the champagne and the perfect steak and the lines of white powder that Charles has secured in the velvet-draped side room. As the afternoon slips into evening, Francine thinks she has never been happier. She was made to choose and she has chosen correctly. Oh, it would have been nice to see Jasmin in her flower-girl frock, but what does Jasmin care for her, Francine, now that the Smart woman has appeared on the scene? ‘Nanny,’ Jasmin calls the woman, tugging at her skirt and smothering her drab face in kisses, while the blackshirt boy smiles on, his ugly hand around Hazel’s waist.
They can all go to hell.
At ten the warning comes but nobody cares. They are in the right place, aren’t they, safe below stairs? When the ceiling plaster begins to crack and crumble, they dance on.
‘Just like confetti!’ giggles Francine, and she lifts her face to the ceiling, licking away the flakes of musty white paint.
Wall lights fizz and spark. Dancers falter, caught out of time. Dark shapes hurry across the floor.
Charles laughs, takes Francine’s hand and leads her towards the wine cellar. But the wine cellar is already full, painted faces smiling up, glasses held aloft, cocktail cherries trembling.
They stumble towards the cloakroom, but rubble has blocked the stairway to the street. In the darkness they kiss. Strings from an abandoned violin vibrate as a high-explosive bomb slams through the Soho sky.
‘I’ve always loved you,’ Charles says. ‘Only you,’ and Francine smiles as a white light screams through the black.
39
August 1941
The sweet peas in the garden had almost gone to seed, but on this sunlit evening the perfume of the last few blooms hung heavy in the warm air. Bea picked the flowers and held them to her nose. She closed her eyes against the sun and opened her mind to the Inward Light.
Allow the light to shine into all the dark corners of the mind.
There was a time when shadows were stubborn, but now the light came easily. She had only to think of her granddaughter and her mind became a dazzle of possibility and hope. When Jasmin smiled it was almost like having Jack back: the light in those amber eyes, the tilt of her dimpled chin. She pictured Jasmin’s face as they’d leafed through the photograph album that morning. Yes, that’s right, love. It’s your daddy when he was five years old. And there’s your granddad Harold. You never met him but he was a very good man.
Bea walked down the steps into the Anderson and pulled open the door. She blinked into the darkness until her eyes grew accustomed and she could see the enamel jug on top of the narrow cabinet. She arranged the sweet peas in the jug; they wouldn’t last more than a day or two, but how pretty they looked, such delicate colours. If there was a raid tonight, Jasmin would be cheered to see fresh flowers in the shelter. She noticed little things like that. You might even say she was a touch too curious – it was one question after another! After elevenses today, Jasmin had somehow spotted the torn-up letter in the kitchen bin, though Bea had covered it with a flattened box of Lux flakes. ‘Why’s this letter all ripped, Nanny?’ she’d asked, clutching a shilling-sized scrap of notepaper that was scrawled with black ink. Bea looked up from her ironing and of course it had to be the fragment where the Knight girl had signed her name.
‘Put that back in the bin and go and wash your hands,’ Bea had said, unable to keep the sharpness from her voice.
‘But—’
‘No buts. Curiosity killed the cat.’
Jasmin had looked alarmed at that, and she spent the next hour in the garden fussing over next door’s puss.
It was odd about the letters, though. Why Lucia persisted in writing when no one ever replied, Bea couldn’t say. Anyone would think she was lovesick.
This summer heat was so tiring. As Bea sat down on the chair in the corner of the shelter she heard the distant swish of the bead curtain at the back door, the heavy tread of brogues down the path.
‘So this is where you’re hiding,’ said Tom. He came in and sat on the wooden bunk that ran along one side of the shelter.
‘Where’s Jasmin?’ he asked.
‘They’ve gone for an ice. Mr Boyne let Hazel off early. Should be back shortly.’
Tom nodded and reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder. They sat for a while longer as the setting sun beamed a shaft of gold through the open shelter door. Bea wondered whether to tell Tom about today’s letter. No; that would only cast a shadow. Hazel had made it clear – ignore any post from Lucia. Put the letters, unopened, into the bin. Lucia would give up eventually, of that Bea had no doubt.
From the house came the sound of the front door banging, the clank of faltering piano keys, ‘London Bridge’ again. Tom chuckled to himself.
‘Jasmin’s determined, I’ll give her that,’ he said, standing up from the bunk. ‘Better go and say hello.’
Bea watched him stroll down the path as Hazel appeared on the patch of lawn holding the small watering can in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She kissed Tom’s cheek and he put an arm around her waist, said something that Bea couldn’t hear. Hazel smiled and stretched up to kiss him again. Wisps of smoke curled above their heads
, and the hem of Hazel’s dress shifted in the breeze.
‘They’re home, Harold,’ Bea murmured. ‘All of them. Home.’
The sweet peas glowed in the sunlight, and it seemed to Bea for that brief silent moment as if the whole world was at peace.
Author’s Note
Many books and sources helped to inspire The Faithful. The following were especially useful:
Booker, J. A., Blackshirts-on-Sea: A pictorial history of the Mosley Summer Camps 1933–1938 (Brockingday Publications, 1999).
de Courcy, Anne, Diana Mosley (Chatto & Windus, 2003).
Durham, Martin, Women and Fascism (Routledge, 1998).
Gottlieb, Julie V., Feminine Fascism: Women in Britain’s Fascist Movement (I. B. Taurus, 2000).
Griffin, Frank, October Day (Secker and Warburg, 1939).
Harris, Carol, Blitz Diary: Life Under Fire in World War II (The History Press, 2010).
Jump, Jim ed., Poems from Spain: British and Irish International Brigaders on the Spanish Civil War (Lawrence & Wishart, 2006).
MacDougall, Philip, If War Should Come: Defence Preparations on the South Coast 1935–1939 (The History Press, 2011).
Pugh, Martin, Hurrah for the Blackshirts: Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the Wars (Jonathan Cape, 2005).
Rosenberg, David, Battle for the East End: Jewish responses to fascism in the 1930s (Five Leaves Publications, 2011).
Sweet, Matthew, The West End Front: The Wartime Secrets of London’s Grand Hotels (Faber and Faber, 2011).
Wheeler, George, To Make the People Smile Again: A memoir of the Spanish Civil War (Zymurgy Publishing, 2003).
While some of the events described in The Faithful are factual – such as the blackshirts’ seaside camps and the wartime detention of Mosley’s fascists – this novel is a work of fiction. The lead characters – Hazel, Tom, Lucia, Francine and Bea – are entirely imagined.
Acknowledgements
Heartfelt thanks to Sophie Orme for helping to shape this novel, and to Sam Humphreys, Associate Publisher at Mantle. It’s been a privilege to work with two such wonderful editors. I am indebted also to Maria Rejt, Mantle Publisher, and the excellent team at Pan Macmillan including Josie Humber, Laura Carr and Jess Duffy.
Thanks to my agent Hellie Ogden for her advice and positivity, and to all at Janklow & Nesbit including Jessie Botterill, Kirsty Gordon, Rebecca Folland and Rachel Balcombe.
For valued comments on various drafts, I’m hugely grateful to Isabel Ashdown, Torben and Victoria Betts, Alex Bristow, Alison Laurie, Jane Osis, Angela West and Steve Wilson.
Many people have helped with research queries, but particular thanks are due to staff at the Imperial War Museum, the Screen Archive South East at Brighton University, the British Library and Bognor Regis library, as well as Dr Julie Gottlieb of the University of Sheffield and Val Bentley at the Sussex Ornithological Society. Any inaccuracies are my own.
Thanks to Joan Barker, Stuart Coupe, Elayne DeLaurian, Louise Gilchrist, Joan Goddard, Sam Kendall, Mary Laven, Ron MacKenzie, Sandra Walsh, Roger West, Gill and Jim Wilson, friends at The Prime Writers and Horsham Writers’ Circle.
Most of all, my thanks and love to Steve, Izzy, Jessie and James.
Reading Group Guide
1. Why do you think Hazel was drawn to Tom, and Tom to Hazel?
2. ‘Political cranks,’ Francine had said, hurrying past with a look of distaste. ‘Don’t flatter them with your attention.’ What do you think initially attracted Hazel to the blackshirts?
3. Francine and Bea are two women with very different attitudes towards motherhood. Which family would you rather have grown up in? Who was the ‘best’ mother?
4. Blackshirt seaside camps were held regularly on the south coast during the 1930s. Do you feel this real-life setting worked well as a backdrop for the novel?
5. Did your attitude towards Hazel change after she joined the blackshirts?
6. Charles is based on a real-life character. Do you think that Charles’s line of work was immoral, or was he simply offering a service?
7. Was Hazel right to keep her secrets from Tom for such a long time?
8. Were you surprised to learn that women, including former suffragettes, supported British fascism in the 1930s? What do you think motivated ‘ordinary’ women like Bea to join?
9. ‘I’ve been useful, that’s all.’ Was Lucia right to accuse Hazel of using her? How do you view their relationship?
10. Discuss the ending of the novel.
Praise for Before the Fall
‘As poignant as it is powerful . . . Her characters – including London’s East End itself – are unforgettable’
Alison MacLeod, author of Unexploded
‘My favourite Great War novel . . . incredible writing’
Joanna Cannon, author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep
‘An astonishing literary achievement’
Ann Weisgarber, author of The Personal History of Rachel Dupree
‘Arresting . . . poignant and confidently handled’
Daily Mail
‘A superb read . . . Intelligent, wise, and full of passion and courage’
Louise Douglas, author of The Secrets Between Us
‘A breathtaking portrayal of life and love in all its complexity’
Suzannah Dunn, author of The Lady of Misrule
‘West paints an evocative picture of war-torn Britain that’s both poignant and powerful’
Good Housekeeping
‘A highly accomplished debut . . . It stands out for the quality of its writing, and for the way in which it depicts the moral spectrum of its period rather than ours’
Cornflower Books
JULIET WEST worked as a journalist before taking an MA in Creative Writing at Chichester University, where she won the Kate Betts Memorial Prize. Before the Fall, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the Myriad Editions novel-writing competition in 2012. Juliet also writes short stories and poetry, and won the H. E. Bates short story prize in 2009. The Faithful is her second novel. She lives in West Sussex with her husband and three children.
Also by Juliet West
Before the Fall
First published 2017 by Mantle
This electronic edition published 2017 by Mantle
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-8281-5
Copyright © Juliet West 2017
Cover image © Roger-Viollet/TopFoto
Author photo © Kelly Hill
The right of Juliet West to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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