Winston’s War (53 page)

“What won't last, Brendan dear?” She nibbled his ear as though this were of far more interest to her provincial American taste than the fate of the world.

“Peace. This Phoney War. The public don't like it, the French don't like it.” Another pull on his cigarette. “Something's got to
be done. I was discussing it with Winston just this morning. It's going to change.”

“But how? Where?”

“Norway! Somehow we're going to start a war in Norway. About the iron ore.” His hands were waving once again. The remnants of the bottle were knocked over but he either didn't notice or didn't care. “Chamberlain doesn't want it, Halifax hates it, but Winston is determined. Cut off the iron ore then throttle the Hun into submission!” And suddenly his waving hands were upon her, at first over her blouse, and then inside, searching hungrily.

She tried to protest but he was kissing her, his mouth full of the taste of tobacco and champagne. She tried to move away but succeeded only in falling back across the large leather bench seat and he threw himself at her in a way he had never done before. It was something to do with the war, with the drama of public affairs and the way that everyone now listened to him, looked up to him, even as he was looking down on them. As though he were leading a cavalry charge, and taking no prisoners.

Even as she fell back, he pursued her, his lips and tongue upon her, his hands, too, and he seemed deaf to her protests. One breast was uncovered, the draught of cold night air cascading across it, and she could feel him firm, pressing into her. He was muttering stupid endearments, fumbling with himself as well as with her, then his hand was between her legs and she could feel him forcing himself ever closer. She could scarcely catch her breath, pressed down by both his weight and the surprise, telling herself this couldn't possibly be happening to her, until she felt him naked pushing up between her thighs. Flesh upon flesh.

It was the point at which she broke. She forced out a low scream and with surprising strength pushed him away from her, yet his hand was deep inside her blouse and, as she forced
him away, she heard the sound of ripping silk. “Brendan, no!” she screamed, all restraint gone, and suddenly found herself running from the car and into the night. She ran with relief, knowing that her home was no more than five minutes away across the park. But also, as she ran, Anna was pursued by the jeering of owls and a growing dread, for she knew that in the morning, or sometime very soon thereafter, she would have to go back to him.

As the car door slammed behind her, Bracken was left feeling befuddled and angry, and not solely from the drink. He had been in mid-performance, one of his best and most intense, yet suddenly his audience had got up and left. It was perplexing, deeply hurtful, yet Bracken was not a man to allow such irritations to stand in his way. The show must go on.

Shepherd Market was but a short walk from the fringes of the park, still closer if you were driving a custom-built Bentley, no matter how erratically, and it was not long before Bracken was there. He had been to this place a couple of times before—there was something about the danger of getting recognized or being found sinning in public that spurred him on—but he found the Market engulfed in the blackout with every doorway so dark he could scarcely have recognized his mother. And when, at last, he had found what he was looking for and she had taken him up the stairs to her squalid room, he expressed no surprise when he discovered that she had a figure that was almost matronly, a little like his mother's. He would always remember that day as a ten-year-old when he had run back home to tell her of some unmerited punishment from his swine of a schoolmaster, tearfully wanting her comfort and affection, and had burst in only to find her standing naked on the hearth, drying herself off from her bath, all dark nipples and sagging flesh and repulsive hair-hidden secrets. Instead of comfort and affection he had received the soundest thrashing she had ever
given him, still naked, which had left welts like tram tracks across his back until he had run back out through the door where she could not follow him.

This woman's body reminded him of his mother. In truth, every woman's body did. And when he removed his shirt and she noticed a scratch mark upon his back, and mentioned it, the obsessive memories came flooding back. She offered an ointment to help it heal, and something that might help the spots on his back, she said, but Bracken hadn't known—didn't want to know—that he had spots on his back! He felt humiliated. He had always been anxious about his personal cleanliness, something of a hypochondriac, which made visits to a whorehouse all the more stressful, and to be told that he had spots made him realize what a terrible mistake this had been, how all women deep down were the same, all wicked, unclean, just like his mother.

So he hit her—punched her, with his fist. On the side of the face, which would leave her with a swollen and blackened eye and which broke the vulgar and utterly charmless blue-stone earring that dangled across her cheek. It cut her cheek, badly, and the blood began to trickle between her fingers, but Bracken noticed none of this as he ran down the stairs and once again tried to flee from the memory of his mother.

February–March 1940.

D
ickie had suggested tea, for which Ian had expected little more than crumpets. Instead he got Welsh rarebit washed down with the finest bottle of Yquem he had ever tasted. Someone was certainly taking this war seriously.

“Thought we should relax from the rigors,”

Dickie insisted. “Always glad to help out.”

“Damned war's proving to be something of a struggle.”

“Pity about the poor Finns.”

“Got to help 'em, old boy, just like Neville said. Thought his statement yesterday was masterful. Absolutely masterful. The PM at his most perspicacious. Had the House in the palm of his hands. What were his words? 'Proceed immediately to send the Finns all available resources at our disposal.' A leader, indeed.”

“You haven't heard, then.”

“Heard what?”

“As I was coming in. Unfortunate timing.”

“What is?”

“The Finns. Capitulated. Bent the knee. Done a deal with the Russians. Given them what they wanted.”

“Oh…” Dickie considered this for a moment then muttered an exceptionally rude word. Then he turned his attention to his rarebit, picking up what was left in his fingers and swallowing it in one jaw-grinding mouthful. “Still, got to look on the bright side,” he suggested through a cascade of crumbs.

“Bright side?”

“Well, all those troops and equipment we were planning to send. Would've been a fiasco if they'd just arrived there and the bloody Finns caved in. Think of it. First shooting match of the war and we're on the losing side? No, better we were never there at all.” He brushed away the crumbs that had settled on his stomach. “In fact, I'll bet you a shit to a chateau that's what Neville's been up to. On the quiet. Delaying. Making sure.”

“The Finns have been fighting for fifteen weeks, Dickie.”

“Precisely my point. And we managed to keep clear of the whole mess. I think we'll look back on this as a minor triumph.”

“So we offer all assistance short of actual help?”

“Live to fight another day. Take a leaf out of Winston's book. If at first you don't succeed, dig another hole. Been the motto of his entire career.”

“As we never cease to be reminded.”

“So you got that little letter, too, did you? Can't imagine who sent it—but the point's perfectly well taken. He's swapped parties more often than I've swapped wives. Loyalty's never been his game. Never truly been a Tory, has Winston.”

“He's delivered the best news of the war.”

“No, there is no good news in this war, Ian.” Dickie, his plate now empty, sat back with a disappointed air. “Nothing but torment and troubles everywhere I look.”

“Troubles, Dickie?”

“As if I didn't have enough on my shoulders. You going to finish that rarebit?”

“No appetite.”

“Excellent,” Dickie announced, picking up his colleague's
left-over toast and devouring it before returning to his theme. “Yes—troubles,” he sighed.

“What's her name?”

“Myra. My sister-in-law.”

“Bloody hell, Dickie, your sister-in-law? You go too far!”

“No! Not like that, you fool. But…"—he shook his head distractedly—"seems she got herself into a bit of a pickle the other night. Well, one does, what with the stresses of war 'n' all.”

“Pickle?”

“Well, sugar, if you want to be entirely accurate. She's overwrought. Was driving back home, bit unsteadily, so the boys in blue pull her over. Pure working-class malice, you know, simply because she's in the Rolls.”

“Drunk?”

“More done-in and distracted. Nothing that a good silk couldn't fix.”

“So what's the problem?”

“They ask to inspect the car. Open the trunk. And find a load of sugar.”

“That's not a crime.”

“Actually it is. Turns out the silly cow had gone and bought nearly three years' worth of ration on the black market and was taking it back home.” He sighed dejectedly. “Three hundred yards from her bloody front door. Damned bad luck.”

Slowly Ian pushed his wine away. He had lost all his appetites.

“Local press'll go wild if they catch on she's one of mine,” Dickie rattled on. “Smuggling three years of cakes and puddings in the back of her Rolls-Royce. They'll make her sound like Marie-Antoinette without the sense of humor. She's up before the magistrates next week, and wants my help. Wants to know if there are any strings I can pull. Can't think what to do.”

“I can,” Ian offered quietly.

“Can you, old boy?”

“Tell her to go to hell.”

Somewhere on the Moors.

My Daring and Darling Sue,

Miss you. Bournemouth is so far away. Here everything seems endless—the moors, the weather, the training. The north wind doesn't stop and we still have great floods of snow. Do you? Temperatures below freezing at night but we get sent out on exercise all the same. We get back to our billet in the local village hall and the boiler's no better than Beelzebub. Now you know why I really want to marry you—just to keep warm!

Thought we were being trained for Finland, but that's now gone. So where? Never much fancied fighting Russians, too many of them. We're still training hard in the snow. The tracks on the moors are sheer ice and I slip all over the place on my BSA. Came off twice yesterday. Still, the bike's better than Shanks's pony which is all the others have got. At last we've got our radios to work—they were fitted with the wrong valves. Food indescribable, but local beer and natives friendly. We haven't drunk them out of house and home yet, but we're trying. All rather spartan.

Some of the wives have turned up in lodgings in the town, and the rest of us are pretty jealous. If only…But there's a sense of something about to happen. More weapons and equipment have been arriving, and yesterday we got a new 2nd Lieutenant who's an interpreter. Name of Petch—foreigner. Anyway, we plan to take him down to the town tonight and get him thoroughly drunk so we can find out where he comes from. Chances are, that's where we're going.

The Yorkies are tough, but that's good. If we ever get down to fighting anything other than boredom and chilblains, I want their sort around me. I think we'll be able to give a good account of ourselves, wherever it's going to be.

How are the changing rooms progressing? Miss you terribly. Hell—transport for the pub run's just arrived—must dash. I'll write when I can. Promise.

Love you always. Can't wait.

Jerry.

It was a soldier's letter from the more relaxed, uncensored times than would follow later. It was a letter she would cherish for the rest of her life.

The bathroom was filled with dense clouds of steam.

“That you, Burgess? Come in, come in!” Churchill lay back in the soapy water, a cigar clamped defiantly between his lips. “Don't mind me in my bath. So little time for anything nowadays, have to double up. Come, sit down on the guest chair.” Precariously, and somewhat diffidently, Burgess perched where he was instructed while Churchill continued to splash in the vast enamel tub of his Admiralty apartments. Moisture ran from the walls and the mirrors.