Abdication: A Novel

by Juliet Nicolson

  Inside the house a long steady cry more like an announcement was coming from upstairs and she could hear Nat’s voice carrying the news across the backyard walls and along the terrace.

  “It’s a boy. Sarah and I have a boy. A son!”

  “Those letters could stand instead for ‘Peace for Joshua,’” May whispered to herself, before going inside to ask Julian for his help. She wanted the paint removed before it had time to dry and strengthen its vile message.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Julian had got himself into a muddle. He had been sitting on a bench in Hyde Park for a good half hour wondering how to make some order of his life. It was late on a Friday morning and he was grateful that there were so few people about. Nearby a small number of bowler-hatted men were reading newspapers and preparing to eat their lunch, their grease-proofed sandwiches lying unwrapped in little packages on their laps, as the pages of the Financial Times flapped in the wind. A few yards away on another bench a large woman in a fur coat sat with her back to him deep in conversation with a distinguished-looking man. Every now and then the woman would stop talking and reprimand the restless terrier at her feet with a fierce little jerk of the lead.

  Julian turned away from the pair in an effort to concentrate on his own thoughts as he vacillated between deciding on one course of action and then another. His tendency towards consistent inconsistency both infuriated and exhausted him.

  Julian had only seen Lottie once since her return from Berlin and Rupert not at all. Julian was sharing a flat near the law courts with a gregarious fellow graduate and had diffidently resumed something of his old social round of dances and dinners and weekend parties. After long bibulous evenings in the Mirabelle and the Café Royal when he had come home disgusted with himself for his continued association with the vacuous Bullingdon crowd. He had intended to be definitive about ending his relationship with Lottie but although he had intimated to May that it was over, the truth was he hadn’t actually got round to telling Lottie. At a recent Mayfair ball finding himself, as usual, bored by the same old people, the same old music and same old chat, he had even kissed her. He had been drunk, he told himself, by way of excuse, and discovered that any lingering feelings of physical desire had entirely evaporated. In fact, after giving way to Lottie’s strange vinegary-smelling skin and her scarlet-painted lips he felt as if he had swallowed a mouthful of stale beer. He was glad she had decided to go and stay with her grandmother for a few days in Cornwall. He could do with a bit of time to think.

  He had not planned to fall in love with May. She was the most unsuitable person for a girlfriend. And up until the moment they had plunged together into the river at Cuckmere Haven and had floated out to sea he had been determined to live a less anarchic, more exacting, and impressively responsible existence. But in the presence of the slender body in the water beside him, and the dark hair swept back from that lovely face with her wide grey eyes looking at him from the swell of the waves, he was confronted with the clarity he had so long sought. As he had walked up the beach with her towards the hut all his apprehension about what was about to happen had magically disappeared. If there was a skill involved in the act of love, he had been eager that they discover it for the first time together. And during that first afternoon, by the sea, in the small hut at Cuckmere, Julian had barely been aware of time or place, certain only of one thing: that life was, in that moment, perfect.

  And yet, away from the hut, and from May’s embrace, the reality of day-to-day life nudged its way into his conscience. Reverberating memories of the violence at Cable Street reinforced his conviction that he was living in a country at odds with itself, riddled with selfishness, hypocrisy, prejudice, double standards and secrets. Last week he had received another card from Peter Grimshaw, the professor he and May had met in Wigan, urging Julian to join him and his friend Eric in fighting the cause in Spain. Julian was tempted to go. And yet. And there he went again! Dithering, procrastinating. For one thing his law term began in a matter of weeks, he argued with himself, and for another he found himself increasingly loathe to travel to a country, fanciful as it sounded, in which he would not be breathing the same air as May.

  The strengthening wind was beginning to deter Hyde Park’s lunchtime visitors from delaying any longer, and newspapers were folded with the finality that preceded a return to the office. Julian adjusted his striped scarf, pulling it up high around his neck and tucking the ends tightly beneath the collar of his coat. The large woman and her gentleman companion continued to sit absorbed in animated conversation on the bench a little way along the path. The small dog was lying obediently at their feet. Julian’s thoughts turned to his mother. She was unwell. The doctors had initially told him it might be tuberculosis but until they could be certain they had advised Julian not to say anything to worry her. He had spent a difficult evening in her flat a week earlier when Mrs. Richardson had taken advantage of his presence to observe what a selfish young man he had become.

  “Instead of looking after your old mother when she needs you, you tell me you are still thinking of taking off for Spain. You don’t even know this boy … Paul did you say his name was? And what about that other one? Eric something? Flair? Blurr? What sort of families do they both come from? Not ones I have ever heard of, I’m sure.”

  As a consequence of that dinner and a sign of tentative guilt, Julian had consulted an expensive chest specialist from Guy’s Hospital, whose son had been his contemporary at Magdalen. Julian had always been careful with his money and was glad he had saved a sufficient sum from his benefactor’s allowance to pay for this medical advice.

  “I understand your mother is widowed,” the specialist had said sympathetically to Julian on the telephone after examining Mrs. Richardson in his Harley Street rooms, an encounter for which she had worn her best hat and diamond pin.

  “I am told on excellent authority that it is very like one in the possession of the Duchess of York,” she told Julian afterwards, while appearing vague about the diagnosis of her illness.

  “We only have our parents for such a short precious time, don’t we?” the specialist had said to Julian. “But do we make the most of it while they are here? That is what I ask myself sometimes and that is exactly what I would advise you to do, Mr. Richardson. Your mother is not at all well, I am afraid. She has cancer of the lung, which I assess to be inoperable.”

  Julian remained ambivalent about this news. He was not certain if it was his duty to care for a woman he did not love even if she was responsible for giving him life. He could, at least for the short term, pay for her medical needs. And the recent conversation with her, or more accurately her latest lecture, had left him feeling unusually defenceless. Perhaps his mother had a point. Apart from the temptations of London, here he was, enjoying the benefits of his Oxford education, the luxuries of Cuckmere, and ever-deeper feelings for May, while responding with a half promise to Peter that he might come out to join the communists in Spain. Was he simply trying to impress his left-wing Beaumont Street heroes with those plans? Should he stay near May and look after his mother, or should he reassess his life by leaving the country? Or was there a halfway measure in all this? He did not know. At times he despaired of himself.

  He had brought a copy of Jude the Obscure to the park but the wind was whipping round him and it felt too cold to settle down and read. Pulling his afghan collar even more tightly round his neck he stood up to leave. He planned to call in at Heywood Hill, the new bookshop in Mayfair that one of the Beaumont Street crowd had recommended for the most interesting and up-to-the-minute political titles. He would have to hurry there if he was to arrive in time for the birthday luncheon of an old university acquaintance, a Bullingdon Club member who had been born with half the silver of Mayfair wedged in his mouth.

  Just then he heard a “whooee,” and tilting and swaying towards him came the unwieldy hulk of Miss Evangeline Nettlefold, being pulled from one side of the path to the other by a small dog of deceptive streng
th. Plumping herself down on the bench, Evangeline patted the seat beside her and, still swaying a little, clamped a hand firmly on Julian’s knee for balance. He tried not to flinch as he felt her kiss dampen his cheek.

  “My, am I surprised to see you on such a blowy day! This is Loafer, Slipper’s puppy. You know? Wallis’s dog. Wallis had to go to Suffolk. On business. They were so busy at the Fort so I said I would take care of Loafer while she was away. I chose the name. You know? Like the new shoe everyone is talking about?” Ignoring Julian’s bemused expression, she rattled on. “Wallis was amused to think that a slipper would give birth to a loafer! But to tell you the truth, I think Loafer is a little unhinged and he is driving me a little crazy.”

  And as Julian looked more closely at Evangeline she did indeed look a little crazed. Her hair (Oh yes, a wig, he suddenly remembered) was in a state of unusual disarray—a little hat with a veil was propped precariously on the top of her head, her cheeks were aflame, and her brow simmered with perspiration.

  “You look very hot in that coat,” Julian said.

  “Oh well, I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone,” she explained.

  “But didn’t I notice you sitting over there with a gentleman just a few moments ago?” Julian asked her.

  The cheeks flamed anew. “Oh yes, well, that was just an acquaintance of mine. I hardly know him.”

  She is not telling the truth, Julian thought to himself. She was certainly more than just “acquainted” with the man with whom she had been in such deep conversation and who looked decidedly familiar from the newspapers, even though Julian could not quite pinpoint his identity. But out loud Julian said, “How strange that you should ‘run into’ two people you barely know in one morning!”

  Evangeline looked startled and stood up quickly. “Yes, well, I must be getting on and leave you to your book.”

  And without another word she set off on her uneven path, a tall, hunched-over figure led on by the little dog. Julian watched her as she rolled away into the distance. Every so often she would give the animal’s lead a vicious little tug, which, had it been any stronger, might have broken the poor animal’s neck.

  There had been a sudden burst of rain, and as Julian reached the elegant Georgian house that faced onto Piccadilly, he was aware of water seeping through the collar of his coat and onto his neck. He rang the bell twice. He had rushed from the park, regretting that the conversation with Evangeline had delayed him and prevented him from making the detour to the bookshop. As the butler opened the door he caught Julian checking his watch.

  “Not the last to arrive, by any means, sir,” he assured him. “Must be the weather, sir,” he continued in the deferential manner that all the best servants adopted to ensure the upper classes never felt themselves to be in the wrong.

  The dining room was on the first floor, facing the street. Julian helped himself to a glass of champagne from a tray, and went over to join the other members of the lunch party who were standing at the open window.

  He was surprised to see Lottie, swinging her elegant legs, sitting on the high window seat next to Rupert. Why wasn’t she in the country?

  “Hallo, Julian, you didn’t think I would miss a good party did you?” Her carefree tone was at odds with the apprehensive expression on her face.

  Julian managed a smile.

  “Hallo, old chap,” Rupert said. “Good of you to prize yourself away from all those lectures to join us! And how is the world of the legal wizard?”

  “The law term hasn’t begun yet,” Julian replied quickly. “But you made it safely back from Berlin in the Talbot then I see?”

  “Ran like the wind, it did.” Rupert replied confidently, but looking strangely sheepish.

  “So sorry your mother isn’t getting any better,” Julian said.

  “Thanks, old chap. I must remind Bettina that we should go down and see Mama soon. Awfully difficult to know what to say to someone who doesn’t even know us. And that sister of mine is so busy playing games with a new German soldier friend she met at a party for the new German ambassador. She says he’s going to take her to Berlin to show her the sights! Anyway, have you been down to Cuckmere recently?”

  Julian murmured that he had, not wanting to admit that he went to see Joan (and everyone else at Cuckmere) every week, and more recently every couple of days. He kept to himself the disapproval felt by the Cuckmere staff, who had not seen either of Lady Joan’s children for a good couple of months.

  Julian turned his attention to the noise coming from the direction of Piccadilly Circus. As the sound of chanting grew louder, the first of several hundred brown flat caps appeared in the street below the window, looking like a field full of flattened molehills, their blue and white banners plainly visible, rising above the caps. Two of the men were carrying a coffin-size container beneath the protection of several battered umbrellas. Another was holding the lead of a Labrador. The dog was moving as slowly as the men.

  “It must be the ship builders from the North with their petition for Downing Street,” a member of the lunch party called out from inside the chandelier-hung room.

  “Yes, that’s right,” confirmed another, leaning precariously far out of the window to get a better view of the street. “I can see that redheaded MP Ellen Wilkinson,” he added. “Apparently she has marched with them all for miles. She cannot be more than five foot tall.”

  Julian was silent. The sight of the slow steps of the Jarrow marchers, who had been on their feet for over three weeks, was one of a desperateness that he had not encountered since his visit to Wigan over six months ago. He had read about the march in the newspapers of course and barely a day had gone by since last April without him thinking of the men standing on those street corners, looking forward to nightfall when another day without work or pay would be over. Further north eight men in ten were said to be unemployed, and since business at Palmers’ shipyard on the Tyne had dried up, the figure was sometimes even higher. But these men who had arrived in the heart of London, just a few feet from where Julian held a brimming glassful of champagne, were passing through one of the richest, most privileged areas in the country. Oh yes, he thought, cynicism washing over him. Most onlookers agreed they were witnessing dignity, pride and courage. But the point was what was anyone, what was he, doing about it?

  Slamming his glass down hard on the table beside him he heard it crack. He turned away from the window, tripping over a well-known member of the peerage, who was lying at full stretch in an armchair, blowing smoke rings from a cigar and managing to yawn at the same time.

  Lottie looked up from her position on Rupert’s knee.

  “You off then?” she had obviously drunk a good deal of champagne and did not bother to disguise the truth of her relationship with Julian’s erstwhile university roommate. “Off to find the backseat of a Rolls-Royce, I expect,” she added, with unmistakable bitterness. Julian did not answer her. Coatless, he dashed out into the street, banging the front door hard behind him before the surprised butler could reach it. An hour later, after he had signed up at the Holborn headquarters to become a card-carrying member of the Labour Party, he made his way back down Piccadilly feeling disturbed. Skirting the back wall of the gardens of Buckingham Palace, he headed for Victoria railway station. Barely pausing to think what he was doing, he bought a ticket to Polegate and an hour later walked through the gates of Cuckmere Park just as the light was fading. Mr. Hooch was putting the Talbot away in the garage and waved in greeting.

  “Good afternoon, sir. Nice to see you. Come to pay a surprise visit to her ladyship, have you, sir?”

  The Cuckmere kitchen staff’s united approval of Mr. Julian had not abated both for his loyalty to Lady Joan and for his still unspoken but obvious attachment to young May.

  “Yes, that’s right, Hooch. I came to find a bit of peace and sanity if you really want to know!” Julian told him, suddenly overcome by a need to tell the truth to the older man. “Is anyone about?” Julian asked.

&n
bsp; Mr. Hooch was not innocent of what lay behind the question. “Sir Philip has gone to his study and I am just this moment back from collecting Miss May from the station. You must have walked along the back lane or we would have passed you on the road. You’ll find her in the kitchen, I expect. I’ll tell Sir Philip you are here.”

  The kitchen door was empty but Julian knew where May lived. He found Mrs. Cage’s front door unlocked. May was crouching in the hallway beside a cupboard sniffing a paintbrush. She started when she saw Julian.

  “You! Sorry! You gave me such a shock! A lovely shock, though,” she whispered. And laying the brush on top of the paint pot, she closed the cupboard and put her finger up to touch his lips.

  “Can we go inside the cupboard?” he whispered back, grinning at her with a mixture of delight and puzzlement and catching her finger and kissing it. “And you can tell me why you are suddenly so interested in paint.”

  “Oak Street, you silly,” she said quietly.

  “Oh yes, of course,” he replied. May had not been the only one to see the letters on the Greenfelds’ door in Bethnal Green on the evening of Joshua’s birth. Both Nat and Simon had been safely upstairs with the new baby when May had beckoned to Julian to join her outside and with the help of a wet cloth and some turpentine the two of them had managed to remove the evidence before any of the inhabitants at number 52 had seen it.

  Without another word, May motioned Julian to follow her up to her room, taking his hand as they climbed the stairs. A small and silent figure was lying facedown on May’s bed. Florence was shaking all over, rigid to May’s gentle touch. On the floor beside her was a small picture frame. May picked it up. Together she and Julian looked at the full-length photograph. A young unsmiling man of about twenty years old, Julian’s age, looked back at them. His hair was greased and smoothed away from his face. Julian recognised the uniform at once. The knee-length socks, lederhosen and beige-brown shirt with epaulettes identified him at once as a member of the Hitler Youth.