Winston’s War

‘There you go again, fussing about Hitler. Fellow’s only digging over his own back yard.’

‘Digging graves.’

‘He’s cleaning up Germany, that’s all. He may be a dictator, but he’s also a bit of a Puritan. Like Cromwell.’

‘Cromwell didn’t slaughter Jews!’

‘For God’s sake, listening to you you’d think that pogroms started yesterday. It’s the history of Europe, woman, centuries old.’

‘Where’s your sense of justice, Sam?’

‘Kitty, we all have our consciences. But only you dine out on it.’

‘Put yours away in the closet, have you? All wrapped up in tissue paper?’

‘Any fool can go to war. And right now, only a fool would go to war.’

‘Conquest. Bloodshed. That’s what you’ll get with Hitler.’

‘Bugger it, Kitty, it’s how we won the Empire.’

‘And cowardice is how it’ll be thrown away!’

Gradually it had just become the two of them. Others fell by the wayside until it was just Sam Hoare and Red Kitty, and he had accused her of being weak-minded and a xenophobe and every other calumny that came to hand. It had gone too far. Neither could find the words to stop it and their host refused to intervene – hell, he was enjoying the game, every minute of it, one arm waving a huge cigar, the other arm linked through that of Joe Kennedy, another spectator who had stepped out of the fight several insults earlier. Beside them, out of the darkness, appeared the rotund form of Joseph Ball. Hoare saw him, and even though he was Home Secretary, feared him a little. It gave him his cue.

‘Loyalty. That’s what this is really all about,’ Hoare offered, trying to find a way out of the confrontation with a final jibe. ‘You go sleep with your strange friends but I’m a party man, Kitty. Always been a party man. And I’ll die a party man.’

Her lip twisted in mockery. ‘Dying for your principles, that I can understand, Sam. But to die for your party?’

She reached sharply towards him. He swayed back in apprehension, alarm flooding his eyes, afraid she was intent on slapping his face, but she did nothing more than grab the umbrella that was dangling over his arm. With her trophy she walked over to the stuffed guy, stared at it as though it might spring to life, then thrust the umbrella beneath its armpit and with a final glance of dark-eyed derision swept away into the night. Hoare was left standing on his own, suddenly isolated, feeling like an abandoned bicycle.

A gust of English embarrassment blew around the ankles of the onlookers until Beaverbrook was once again centre-stage, demanding their attention, strutting theatrically over to the guy as though on a tour of inspection. He was ridiculously small with a face that would not have been distinguished even on a gnome, but his money more than made up for it. A Napoleon in newsprint and an astrakhan collar. ‘So – what do we have here?’ he demanded. ‘Munich Man, eh? Not quite what I had in mind.’ He retrieved the umbrella and used it to prod the guy. ‘Whaddya think?’ he addressed the gathering. ‘Who is he? Had him made specially, so don’t disappoint me.’

‘A clue, Maxie darling, give us a clue,’ a giggling voice pleaded.

‘OK. So he’s a little like Guy Fawkes, maybe. Someone who tries to blow up everything in sight. Over-stuffed. Over-blown. Come on, any ideas?’

A brief silence from the crowd and then: ‘Mussolini. It’s got to be Mussolini!’

‘Signor Mussolini to you,’ Beaverbrook growled. ‘Hell, he hears that and he’ll confiscate my villa in Tuscany. No, not Pasta Man. Another guess.’

A woman’s voice: ‘With a stomach like that it’s got to be Hermann Goering.’

‘No, no, no. And if you’re listening up there, Hoyman’ – Beaverbrook swapped his Canadian brogue for a thick Brooklyn accent and raised his eyes to the dark skies – ‘we loves ya!’

Amidst the bubbling of laughter other names were thrown in – Hore-Belisha, Herbert Hoover, Generalissimo Franco, even Wallis Simpson (‘It’s got to be her with the mouth open like that …’) – but Beaverbrook continued stubbornly shaking his head until: ‘Give us another clue, Maxie. Don’t be such a tease.’

The diminutive press baron waved his hands for silence, the gleam of mischief in his eye. ‘One more clue, then,’ he conceded. Taking the large cigar from his own mouth, he inserted it into the slit in the face of the guy, where it remained gently smouldering. ‘I give you …’

‘Cigar Man. It’s Cigar Man! Oh, Maxie darling, you’re so wicked!’

They cheered Beaverbrook from all sides. Only one or two of those present drifted off into the night, declining to be carried along on the tide.

The smell of sausage and singeing onion that wafted on the breezes of that night had proved irresistible, and the canvas awning erected by the Boy Scouts as a hospitality area was crowded. Brendan Bracken had lingered on the edge for some time, fighting the urge to join their number. He was hungry but it was a question of image and image to Bracken was most of what he had. A workman could eat sausages in public, so could an earl or an actress, but an Irish impostor had to be careful of such glancing blows to his reputation. The English insisted that things be in their rightful place, and the place for a would-be statesman who wanted to be taken so terribly seriously was not on his own in a sausage queue. He imagined them all talking about him – but he always imagined people talking about him, dreamt of it, insisted on it, for to be ignored would be the biggest humiliation of all. But not about sausages. So he fought his hunger, feeling weaker with each passing minute, twisted inside by childhood memories of the kitchens of Tipperary until, despite his reservations, he could resist his cravings no longer. He grabbed a sausage and bun with all the fillings and wandered a little way from the other guests to enjoy in solitude the sensation of simply stuffing himself. That, he knew, was where the danger lay. These bangers-in-a-bun were impossible to eat delicately, you had to wolf them down before they turned on you and attacked, dripping grease and ghastliness everywhere. Bracken was notoriously fastidious, a desperate hypochondriac who took meticulous care over his appearance, washing his hands many times a day. This public encounter with a sausage was definitely a one-off, so he prepared himself. He found a spot where he could turn his back on the crowd, place his feet carefully in the sticky grass for security, lean gently forward and –

‘Why, is that Mr Bracken hiding over there?’

The sausage turned into a missile, disappearing into the night, leaving the bun limp in his hands and a trail of grease spreading across the front of his starched white shirt. His bow tie drooped in despair.

‘You told me you’d call, Mr Bracken,’ Anna Fitzgerald said accusingly, ignoring his plight – no, enjoying it! Bracken’s arms were spread in dismay, his hair tumbled over his forehead as though trying to get a look for itself at the devastation. ‘You offered to show me round London, but you never called,’ she continued.

‘I … I … I’ve …’ Words suddenly deserted him as he tried to comprehend the mess of slime that was creeping across his chest. His brain and his tongue, usually so sharp and active, had seemingly dived for cover. All he could do was to gaze at her through pebble-thick glasses with the expression of a chastened child.

‘You don’t like Americans?’

‘No, no, please …’

‘Married or something?’

‘No, of course not …’

‘You’ve got a jealous girlfriend?’

‘Nothing like that.’

Good, she’d got that sorted. She approached much closer; he noticed she had a small dog in tow, a russet-and-white King Charles spaniel trailing from a lead. ‘I know, you’re an important man. Very busy. Lots of distractions …’

She had taken the linen handkerchief from his top pocket and was beginning a clean-up operation on his shirt, gently wiping away the mess, taking control. ‘The truth is, Mr Bracken, you’re just a little clumsy. And rather shy.’

Anna Fitzgerald was petite, slim, almost boyish, dressed in a dark leather airman’s jacket that was a couple of sizes too large for her, and boots up to her knees. She was dressed so much more sensibly than he. The cold, damp grass beneath his feet was turning to mud and already laying siege to his hand-tooled leather town shoes, yet it no longer seemed to matter. She possessed the purest black hair he had ever seen. Her eyes danced and shimmered in the light of a thousand candles. She was different – so very different from other women he had ever met. It had taken her only a few moments to break down the defences of a lifetime and now no one else at this gathering seemed to matter. He wanted the grease stain to last for ever.

‘Busy – yes. I have been busy.’ At last he had regained some measure of composure, his brain in contact once more with his tongue. Other parts of his anatomy seemed to be gaining a life all their own, too. ‘Winston’s been making speeches, keeping me running around …’

‘So no time to show a dumb American around town.’

‘Well, it wasn’t just that – I mean, not that at all …’ Bracken began to stammer; bugger, he was making a mess of this. He was almost relieved when she was distracted by the spaniel – whose name turned out to be Chumpers. He had found something in the grass – Bracken’s sausage – and was giving it his undivided attention. ‘I was worried that your uncle the Ambassador, and Winston, they – how should I put this?’

‘Send smoke signals from opposite sides of the blanket?’

‘Exactly. Both very passionate people. I thought it might be difficult.’

‘You find passion difficult, Mr Bracken?’

‘I meant that it might be awkward – for you – if I were, you know, to invite you out. Mixing with the enemy.’

‘I’m not so sure about English girls but in Massachusetts they raise us with minds all of our own.’

‘Ah.’