The Second-last Woman in England (38 page)

It was important to remember this moment, this day, thought Cecil. And important that the children remember it too, remember it as a special time, a golden time. A time that they might tell their children and their grandchildren about. His own father had witnessed Queen Victoria riding past in a carriage outside Buckingham Palace on her Diamond Jubilee. And earlier still, Grandfather had written a memoir in which he described the celebrations for the young Queen’s coronation in 1838.

And now it’s my turn, thought Cecil. We must dig out the box brownie. And we should go to The Mall, he thought suddenly. Really, we should go and watch the procession. Why are we staying here in the house? Why are we watching it on the television when we could see it for ourselves?

But he had purchased the television for just this occasion. And there were people coming over—Leo and Felicity, a number of neighbours, Leo’s nephew, young Archie and some girl of his, the Swanbridges. The children were looking forward to it. Still, it seemed sad not to be out there amongst the people.

He had purchased Coronation mugs for the children. Such items were everywhere in London: Coronation plates, Coronation spoons, special edition Coronation stamps—indeed, the commercialisation of the Coronation was verging on the vulgar. But a mug was a traditional souvenir item. Most households still had a ’37 Coronation mug in a cupboard somewhere. So he had dropped in to Selfridges on his way home and purchased two mugs for the children, cream-coloured and carefully wrapped in white tissue paper. They stood side by side on the dressing table. He would present them this morning—perhaps over breakfast, certainly before all the guests arrived. It would be a private moment, a solemn moment—a family moment.

He walked across to his wardrobe and peered for some moments at its contents. Not a suit, that was too formal. He settled for a pair of new and rather smart beige trousers, a crisp white linen shirt and the green and black striped VPS tie. He topped it off with a navy blazer and added a pair of black loafers.

He heard a sound from the next room—footsteps, the floorboards creaking. Harriet was up.

Well, what of it? The day had begun. He was ready for it.

Last night Harriet had been to see Freddie. He was still residing, it seemed, in the appalling bed-sit off Marylebone Road and Harriet had gone round there three, four times since the incident with Nobby, returning each time angry and irritable, or quiet and concerned.

Last night she had come home to announce that Freddie was returning to Canada.

She had returned late; the children had already gone to bed, and Cecil had been sitting reading the paper in the drawing room, listening to Elgar on the wireless, half waiting for her, half attempting to complete the crossword. There had been one final clue, twelve across: ‘A gamble on some sunshine is treacherous’, seven letters, ending with ‘s’.

She had come in, stood for a moment in the doorway, regarding him, it had seemed, and made her announcement.

‘Freddie is going to return to Canada.’

And he had been relieved, truth to tell. Who would not have been? His brother-in-law’s return to England had been disastrous. It had damaged his marriage, upset the children and jeopardised a friendship with Nobby to boot. And what it had cost Empire and Colonial and his own position there—even before Freddie had turned up—well, that was nothing short of catastrophic. Frankly, Freddie was nothing but trouble.

But he had needed to play it carefully, he had realised that at once.

‘I see,’ he had replied, folding his paper and placing it on the coffee table.

‘You want him to go, don’t you?’ Harriet had replied immediately, though he had said nothing to indicate this.

‘My dear, it makes no difference to me one way or the other. It’s his decision.’

‘But you’re glad, aren’t you?’

He had been baffled, irritated by her attack. She had seemed almost hysterical.

‘I won’t deny it’s best all round if he does go. It can’t be much fun for him here. And I doubt that things will improve substantially for him in the foreseeable future.’

‘You don’t know what it’s been like for him! He’s waited years,
years
to come back; it’s been his only glimmer of hope during those dreadful, dreary years in exile.’

‘For God’s sake! He’s not a deposed monarch!’

‘Isn’t he? He may as well be! It’s as though all those years of active service, of fighting for one’s country in that dreadful place, in appalling conditions, count for nothing.’

‘Harriet, I don’t make the rules.’

‘No, but you’re happy to uphold them when it suits you, when you’re safe and secure in your office. No one can touch you there, can they?’

Her words had shocked him. They had been so bitter, so contemptuous. They had rendered him speechless. Was this what she thought of him? Of his work? Of those endless, terrifying nights fire-watching at the docks during the war?

‘Do you know what Freddie has been through? Do you have any idea?’

‘For God’s sake, I am not responsible for what has happened to Freddie!’

Then he had lowered his eyes. The conversation with Nobby at the horrid little pub had come back to him. But Harriet knew nothing of that. No one did, and no one needed to know. And suddenly he had been angry with her for putting him in this position.

‘And might I remind you, Harriet, that you are my wife? That your duty, first and foremost, is to me and your family. Not to your younger brother, who, frankly, has been nothing but trouble since he came back—and for a damn sight longer than that too.’

He had had a good mind to let her know exactly what he had done for Freddie, and not just for Freddie but for her and Simon too! He had jeopardised his own career, he had lied to the police, that was what he had done!

He had picked up the newspaper then and shaken it angrily.

‘My …
duty
?’ she had repeated, as though the word were foreign to her.

He had thrown the paper down again.

‘Yes, your duty. Frankly—and I’m sorry to have to say this—but you appear more concerned about Freddie than you do about your own children, and me, for that matter.’

That had been the deciding blow, it had appeared, as Harriet had turned and walked from the room and a moment later he had heard her bedroom door open and close.

He had gazed at the last clue in the crossword for some considerable time after that, but the answer had continued to elude him.

Cecil surveyed himself in the mirror, adjusted the way the blazer rested on his shoulders and straightened his tie so that the swan and seahorse crest was central, turned to face the window and looked at himself sideways. Good, it would do. The ladies, of course, would take hours to get ready—hair teasing and spraying and make-up, and one dress then another, and first one pair of shoes, then a second, then a third. And which handbag? And how much jewellery? Or just the pearls? And then, of course, this evening, they would spend hours taking it all off. And everyone would go to bed and it would all be over. Tomorrow was another day.

Out of nowhere the pointlessness of it all welled up and threatened to overwhelm him.

He leaned his forehead against the mirror and closed his eyes, remembering the last time—the last Coronation in ’37. He and Harriet had just become engaged. He’d been living in lodgings in Bayswater and not yet turned 30—still a young man, filled with a young man’s hopes and ambitions. One’s whole life ahead of one, the future unknown, a blank canvas. And now here he was in his mid-forties. Life was on a set course, there were no unknowns left. In a few short years the children would leave home, get married, start their own families. And he was left with his job, his wife, his home.

Was it enough?

The Coronation mugs stood on the dressing table. He picked one up and delicately unwrapped the intricately folded tissue paper until the mug was revealed in all its pageantry and splendour, and the face of the new Queen gazed serenely back at him.

He smiled. It was a splendid day—a day to remember.

Cecil was first down to breakfast. He sat alone in the breakfast room and waited for Mrs Thompson to bring in the tea. Upstairs he could hear sounds of movement.

‘Mummy, what shoes should I wear? I don’t like that black pair, they hurt my feet.’

‘I hardly think it’s a tie sort of day, Mumsy. After all, it’s not as if we were actually attending the service at the Abbey, is it?’

‘Could you please just dress yourself, Anne,’ came Harriet’s irritable reply, audible, though indistinctly, from her dressing room. ‘Nanny, would you please see to it.’

Cecil sat and twirled the napkin ring around his napkin silently. The two mugs in their crisp white tissue paper stood on the sideboard.

Eventually his family began to emerge—Anne and Nanny first, the one bursting energetically into the room, the other red-faced and a little flustered, self-consciously bringing up the rear.

‘Good morning, Anne. Good morning, Nanny. And a happy Coronation Day to you both,’ Cecil remarked.

‘Happy Coronation Day!’ Anne sang back, plonking herself down at the table and grabbing her napkin.

‘Oh. Yes. Same to you, Mr Wallis,’ added the Nanny, rather feebly.

‘And what are your family doing to mark this momentous occasion, Miss Corbett? Are they attending a street party?’

The question seemed to flummox the girl, then she recovered herself and said, somewhat grimly, ‘Oh yes, a street party. They’re all going to a lovely party down our street.’

And Anne, who had been fussily rearranging her position on the chair, looked up and said, ‘But Father, Nanny doesn’t have a family, do you, Nanny? They were all killed.’

No one appeared to know what to reply to this and thankfully Julius strode into the room at that moment with his hands in his pockets.

‘Morning, Pops,’ he announced blithely, reaching for the discarded
Times
from last night. ‘Here we all are then,’ he continued. ‘The big day finally upon us. A day of pageantry and jollity to thrill the masses, eh?’

Fortunately Mrs Thompson chose that moment to arrive with the tea and coffee pots. She burst into the breakfast room in a gaudy Coronation apron, her hair recently set for the occasion.

‘What a mornin’!’ she announced breathlessly. ‘Thought we was gonna run out of coffee,’ she declared, dumping the two pots on the table with a jarring thud and a shake of her tightly permed head. ‘But at the last minute I found a spare packet at the back of the shelf.’

‘That is a relief, Mrs T,’ said Julius. ‘Lord knows what we’d have done but for your quick thinking and eagle eyes.’

Mrs Thompson made no reply to this as she was already patting her hair and heading out of the door.

‘Oh. Beg your pardon, Mrs Wallis,’ she said, and Harriet entered the room looking cross.

‘
Why
is that wretched woman always in the way?’ said Harriet pulling out her chair and glaring furiously at them all.

There was a surprised silence. As far as anyone knew Mrs Thompson wasn’t always in the way. Indeed, she tended to spend the majority of her time downstairs smoking her revolting cigarettes, poring over the
Daily Mail
and listening to
Have a Go
and
Twenty Questions
and
Round Britain Quiz
on the radio. One frequently had to go in search of her.