Winter of the World (118 page)

On the government front bench he could see his mother, now Minister for Schools, and his Uncle Billy, Minister for Coal. Billy Williams had started work down the pit at the age of thirteen,
Lloyd knew. Ethel had been the same age when she began scrubbing the floors of T
ŷ
Gwyn. This debate was not about fine phrases, it was about their lives.

After a minute he abandoned his script and spoke extempore. He recalled instead the misery of working-class families made penniless by unemployment or disability, scenes he had witnessed first
hand in the East End of London and the South Wales coalfield. His voice betrayed the emotion he felt, somewhat to his embarrassment, but he ploughed on. He sensed his audience beginning to pay
attention. He spoke of his grandfather and others who had started the Labour movement with the dream of comprehensive employment insurance to banish forever the fear of destitution. When he sat
down there was a roar of approval.

In the visitors’ gallery his wife Daisy smiled proudly and gave him a thumbs-up sign.

He listened to the rest of the debate in a glow of satisfaction. He felt he had passed his first real test as an MP.

Afterwards, in the lobby, he was approached by a Labour Whip, one of the people responsible for making sure MPs voted the right way. After congratulating Lloyd on his speech, the Whip said:
‘How would you like to be a parliamentary private secretary?’

Lloyd was thrilled. Each minister and secretary of state had at least one PPS. In truth a PPS was often little more than a bag-carrier, but the job was the usual first step on the way to a
ministerial appointment. ‘I’d be honoured,’ Lloyd said. ‘Who would I be working for?’

‘Ernie Bevin.’

Lloyd could hardly believe his luck. Bevin was Foreign Secretary and the closest colleague of Prime Minister Attlee. The intimate relationship between the two men was a case of the attraction of
opposites. Attlee was middle class: the son of a lawyer, an Oxford graduate, an officer in the First World War. Bevin was the illegitimate child of a housemaid, never knew his father, started work
at the age of eleven, and founded the mammoth Transport and General Workers Union. They were physical opposites, too: Attlee slim and dapper, quiet, solemn; Bevin a huge man, tall and strong and
overweight, with a loud laugh. The Foreign Secretary referred to the Prime Minister as ‘little Clem’. All the same they were staunch allies.

Bevin was a hero to Lloyd and to millions of ordinary British people. ‘There’s nothing I’d like more,’ Lloyd said. ‘But hasn’t Bevin already got a
PPS?’

‘He needs two,’ the Whip said. ‘Go to the Foreign Office tomorrow morning at nine and you can get started.’

‘Thank you!’

Lloyd hurried along the oak-panelled corridor, heading for his mother’s office. He had arranged to meet Daisy there after the debate. ‘Mam!’ he said as he entered.
‘I’ve been made PPS to Ernie Bevin!’

Then he saw that Ethel was not alone. Earl Fitzherbert was with her.

Fitz stared at Lloyd with a mixture of surprise and distaste.

Even in his shock Lloyd noticed that his father was wearing a perfectly cut light-grey suit with a double-breasted waistcoat.

He looked back at his mother. She was quite calm. This encounter was not a surprise to her. She must have contrived it.

The earl came to the same conclusion. ‘What the devil is this, Ethel?’

Lloyd stared at the man whose blood ran in his veins. Even in this embarrassing situation, Fitz was poised and dignified. He was handsome, despite the drooping eyelid that resulted from the
Battle of the Somme. He leaned on a walking stick, another consequence of the Somme. A few months short of sixty years old, he was immaculately groomed, his grey hair neatly trimmed, his silver tie
tightly knotted, his black shoes shining. Lloyd, too, always liked to look well turned out. That’s where I get it from, he thought.

Ethel went and stood close to the earl. Lloyd knew his mother well enough to understand this move. She frequently used her charm when she wanted to persuade a man. All the same, Lloyd did not
like to see her being so warm to one who had exploited her then let her down.

‘I was so sorry when I heard about the death of Boy,’ she said to Fitz. ‘Nothing is as precious to us as our children, is it?’

‘I must go,’ Fitz said.

Until this moment, Lloyd had met Fitz only in passing. He had never before spent this much time with him or heard him speak this number of words. Despite feeling uncomfortable, Lloyd was
fascinated. Grumpy though he was right now, Fitz had a kind of allure.

‘Please, Fitz,’ said Ethel. ‘You have a son whom you have never acknowledged – a son you should be proud of.’

‘You shouldn’t do this, Ethel,’ said Fitz. ‘A man is entitled to forget the mistakes of his youth.’

Lloyd cringed with embarrassment, but his mother pressed on. ‘Why should you want to forget? I know he was a mistake, but look at him now – a Member of Parliament who has just made a
thrilling speech and been appointed PPS to the Foreign Secretary.’

Fitz pointedly did not look at Lloyd.

Ethel said: ‘You want to pretend that our affair was a meaningless dalliance, but you know the truth. Yes, we were young and foolish, and randy too – me as much as you – but we
loved each other. We
really
loved each other, Fitz. You should admit it. Don’t you know that if you deny the truth about yourself you lose your soul?’

Fitz’s face was no longer merely impassive, Lloyd saw. He was struggling to maintain control. Lloyd understood that his mother had put her finger on the real problem. It was not so much
that Fitz was ashamed of having an illegitimate son; he was too proud to accept that he had loved a housemaid. He probably loved Ethel more than his wife, Lloyd guessed. And that upset all his most
fundamental beliefs about the social hierarchy.

Lloyd spoke for the first time. ‘I was with Boy at the end, sir. He died bravely.’

For the first time, Fitz looked at him. ‘My son doesn’t require your approval,’ he said.

Lloyd felt as if he had been slapped.

Even Ethel was shocked. ‘Fitz!’ she said. ‘How can you be so mean?’

At that point Daisy came in.

‘Hello, Fitz!’ she said gaily. ‘You probably thought you’d got rid of me, but now you’re my father-in-law again. Isn’t that amusing?’

Ethel said: ‘I’m just trying to persuade Fitz to shake Lloyd’s hand.’

Fitz said: ‘I try to avoid shaking hands with socialists.’

Ethel was fighting a losing battle, but she would not give up. ‘See how much of yourself there is in him! He resembles you, dresses like you, shares your interest in politics –
he’ll probably end up Foreign Secretary, which you always wanted to be!’

Fitz’s expression darkened further. ‘It is now most unlikely that I shall ever be Foreign Secretary.’ He went to the door. ‘And it would not please me in the least if
that great office of state were to be held by my Bolshevik bastard!’ With that he walked out.

Ethel burst into tears.

Daisy put her arm around Lloyd. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry,’ Lloyd said. ‘I’m not shocked or disappointed.’ This was not true, but he did not want to appear pathetic. ‘I was rejected by him a long
time ago.’ He looked at Daisy with adoration. ‘I’m lucky to have plenty of other people who love me.’

Ethel said tearfully: ‘It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have asked him to come here. I might have known it would turn out badly.’

‘Never mind,’ said Daisy. ‘I have some good news.’

Lloyd smiled at her. ‘What’s that?’

She looked at Ethel. ‘Are you ready for this?’

‘I think so.’

‘Come on,’ said Lloyd. ‘What is it?’

Daisy said: ‘We’re going to have a baby.’

(iii)

Carla’s brother, Erik, came home that summer, near to death. He had contracted tuberculosis in a Soviet labour camp, and they had released him when he became too ill
to work. He had been sleeping rough for weeks, travelling on freight trains and begging lifts on lorries. He arrived at the von Ulrich house barefoot and wearing filthy clothes. His face was like a
skull.

However, he did not die. It might have been being with people who loved him; or the warmer weather as winter turned into spring; or perhaps just rest; but he coughed less and regained enough
energy to do some work around the house, boarding up smashed windows, repairing roof tiles, unblocking pipes.

Fortunately, at the beginning of the year Frieda Franck had struck gold.

Ludwig Franck had been killed in the air raid that destroyed his factory, and for a while Frieda and her mother had been as destitute as everyone else. But she got a job as a nurse in the
American zone, and soon afterwards, she explained to Carla, a little group of American doctors had asked her to sell their surplus food and cigarettes on the black market in exchange for a cut of
the proceeds. Thereafter she turned up at Carla’s house once a week with a little basket of supplies: warm clothing, candles, flashlight batteries, matches, soap, and food – bacon,
chocolate, apples, rice, canned peaches. Maud divided the food into portions and gave Carla double. Carla accepted without hesitation, not for her own sake, but to help her feed baby Walli.

Without Frieda’s illicit groceries, Walli might not have made it.

He was changing fast. The dark hair with which he had been born had now gone, and instead he had fine, fair hair. At six months he had Maud’s wonderful green eyes. As his face took shape,
Carla noticed a fold of flesh in the outer corners of his eyes that gave him a slant-eyed look, and she wondered if his father had been a Siberian. She could not remember all the men who had raped
her. Most of the time she had closed her eyes.

She no longer hated them. It was strange, but she was so happy to have Walli that she could hardly bring herself to regret what had happened.

Rebecca was fascinated by Walli. Now just fifteen, she was old enough to have the beginnings of maternal feelings, and she eagerly helped Carla bathe and dress the baby. She played with him
constantly, and he gurgled with delight when he saw her.

As soon as Erik felt well enough, he joined the Communist Party.

Carla was baffled. After what he had suffered at the hands of the Soviets, how could he? But she found that he talked about Communism in the same way he had talked about Nazism a decade earlier.
She just hoped that this time his disillusionment would not be so long coming.

The Allies were keen for democracy to return to Germany, and city elections were scheduled for Berlin later in 1946.

Carla felt sure the city would not return to normal until its own people took control, so she decided to stand for the Social Democratic Party. But Berliners quickly discovered that the Soviet
occupiers had a curious notion of what democracy meant.

The Soviets had been shocked by the results of elections in Austria the previous November. The Austrian Communists had expected to run neck-and-neck with the Socialists, but had won only four
seats out of 165. It seemed that voters blamed Communism for the brutality of the Red Army. The Kremlin, unused to genuine elections, had not anticipated that.

To avoid a similar result in Germany, the Soviets proposed a merger between the Communists and the Social Democrats in what they called a united front. The Social Democrats refused, despite
heavy pressure. In East Germany the Russians started arresting Social Democrats, just as the Nazis had in 1933. There the merger was forced through. But the Berlin elections were supervised by the
four Allies, and the Social Democrats survived.

Once the weather warmed up, Carla was able to take her turn queuing for food. She carried Walli with her wrapped in a pillowcase – she had no baby clothes. Standing in line for potatoes
one morning, a few blocks from home, she was surprised to see an American jeep pull up with Frieda in the passenger seat. The balding, middle-aged driver kissed her on the lips, and she jumped out.
She was wearing a sleeveless blue dress and new shoes. She walked quickly away, heading for the von Ulrich house, carrying her little basket.

Carla saw everything in a flash. Frieda was not trading on the black market, and there was no syndicate of doctors. She was the paid mistress of an American officer.

It was not unusual. Thousands of pretty German girls had been faced with the choice: see your family starve, or sleep with a generous officer. French women had done the same under German
occupation: officers’ wives back here in Germany had spoken bitterly about it.

All the same, Carla was horrified. She believed that Frieda loved Heinrich. They were planning to get married as soon as life returned to some semblance of normality. Carla felt sick at
heart.

She reached the head of the line and bought her ration of potatoes, then hurried home.

She found Frieda upstairs in the drawing room. Erik had cleaned up the room and put newspaper in the windows, the next best thing to glass. The curtains had long ago been recycled as bed linen,
but most of the chairs had survived so far, their upholstery faded and worn. The grand piano was still there, miraculously. A Russian officer had discovered it and announced that he would return
next day with a crane to lift it out through the window, but he had never come back.

Frieda immediately took Walli from Carla and began to sing to him. ‘
A, B, C, die Katze lief im Schnee
.’ The women who had not yet had children, Rebecca and Frieda, could
hardly get enough of Walli, Carla observed. Those who had had children of their own, Maud and Ada, adored him but dealt with him in a briskly practical way.

Frieda opened the lid of the piano and encouraged Walli to bang on the keys as she sang. The instrument had not been played for years: Maud had not touched it since the death of her last pupil,
Joachim Koch.

After a few minutes Frieda said to Carla: ‘You’re a bit solemn. What is it?’

‘I know how you get the food you bring us,’ Carla said. ‘You’re not a black marketeer, are you?’

‘Of course I am,’ Frieda said. ‘What are you talking about?’