Circles of Time (29 page)

She frowned. “I don't remember.”

“Don't you? I came to the Cadogan Square house with my father for dinner. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, our most beloved ex-prime minister, was your father's guest. I'd just come back from the Balkans and was surlier than usual. We talked for about a minute. You were, in my opinion, too plump, too mousy, and too boring to be tolerated for longer than that. How little one knows.”

She took his hand and squeezed it. “You're a lovely man, Jacob.”

They were waiting in Hyde Park: thirty young men in dark clothes—black shirts and black ties. A few wore trench coats although the day was sunny. There was something ominous about their brooding silence, the way they stood watching, flanking the gravel path the tired marchers were taking toward Speakers Corner and Marble Arch.

“Reds … Reds … look at the Reds.” A chanting, rhythmic, unnerving in its orchestrated hate. “Yids … Yids … see all the Yids.”

A group of mounted policemen eyed them warily, but the dark-clothed men were not doing anything, not intimidating anyone.

“Reds … Reds … look at the Reds.”

A few of them suddenly detached themselves from the group and walked alongside the marchers. They carried bundles of crudely duplicated copies of the
Dearborn Independent, The International Jew
, and pamphlets with Benito Mussolini's picture on the front. They tried to press their literature into the hands of the marchers.

“Read this, sir … read this, ma'am … the truth … the Jewish-Communist conspiracy … subversion of Christian ethics and decency … the bulwark of fascist morality. Read it, sir. Read it, ma'am....”

A gangly young man in a raincoat tried to press some pamphlets into Jacob's hand. “Read it, sir.”

“Buzz off,” Jacob said quietly.

The young man fell into step beside him. He stared at Jacob for a moment and then said, “You're an Ikey, aren't you?”

“I said buzz off. You're not wanted here.”

“Yes,” Winifred said sharply, taking a firm hold of Jacob's hand. “Go away.”

The man noticed the gesture and sneered. “I wouldn't sleep with an oily Jew if I were you, miss. Get slippery kiddies that way.”

Jacob jerked his hand from Winifred's grasp and sent a straight-arm punch into the side of the man's face. The man reeled off the path and fell clumsily in the grass, his broadsides and pamphlets scattering across the ground.

“You bastard!” Jacob said as he stepped out of the line of march and kicked the material. The papers flew into the air, sheets of newsprint flying off in the wind. “Bloody rotten filth!”

The small knot of Fascists surged forward, most of them screening Jacob from the peace marchers while half a dozen others waded into him with flying fists.

William came running as fast as his stiff leg would permit. He had anticipated the action as soon as he had seen Jacob send the man in the raincoat flying. Two young Fascists tried to stop him by grabbing at his arms. He shook them away like flies. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the pale, tense face of Osbert—the leader—Osbert's British League of Fascisti a reality after all.

“Don't be a damn fool, Greville!” Osbert called out.

But he was beyond stopping now. He burst through the screen of dark-clothed men like a runaway bull. A man turned away from punching Jacob in the ribs and aimed a blow at William. He took it gleefully on the forearm and then backhanded the man into insensibility.

Police whistles shrilled. Two mounted policemen spurred their horses forward. The ordered ranks of the peace march began to dissolve into confused and frightened groups of screaming women and small, angry knots of men. Banners and signs littered the pathway. William planted his feet and threw punches until he saw Jacob roll free and get up on one knee. There was blood coming from his nose but he looked all right and Winifred had run up and was kneeling in front of him, pressing a handkerchief to his face.

William turned and slammed his fist into the jaw of one Fascist and kicked at another—but they were scattering, running off across the park. The men lumbering toward him now were bobbies—half a dozen or more, blowing whistles, wielding truncheons. He thought of the grim-faced inspector at Chancery Lane police station … the cold cells with their iron doors. His knee felt on fire after being kicked and he hobbled toward a milling group of women.

“
Stop that man!
”

Several of the women clapped as he reached them. They formed a wall around him and raised a tattered banner as though to shield him from view with it.
NO MORE WAR INTERNATIONAL—SUSSEX CHAPTER
.

“
That man! Hold that man!
”

“Why don't you go after those bullies!” a woman screamed at the police.

A girl tugged frantically at William's sleeve. “Duck down, for heaven's sake! You're much too tall!”

He bent down to the level of the girl. She was red-haired and slender and wore a blue mackintosh and a black beret. She slipped quickly out of the mackintosh and draped it over William's shoulders like a shawl.

“Come with me,” she said. “Quickly!”

The marchers were re-forming with some confusion. The girl, holding William by the hand, ducked through the milling crowd and then back along the line of march toward Hyde Park Corner.

“The police didn't see us,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “Keep walking slowly, and bent like that. You'll look like an old man from the back.”

He certainly felt like one. His knee ached, and assorted other places on his body and face were starting to smart and throb. He'd punched quite a few men, but quite a few had punched him.

“Be careful,” she whispered. “Coppers.” She tugged at his hand. “Quickly—down here.”

They descended the steps of the Hyde Park Corner tube station. The girl placed some coins on the ticket counter and they went deeper, down to the trains and onto one of them.

They sat facing each other. She smiled happily as the train began to move. “There! We made it. Sanctuary!”

“Where are we going?”

“I have no idea. I don't know London too well. It doesn't matter. The only important thing is that you're safe. You were magnificent! The way you bored into them—totally without fear. I suppose that comes from long experience—crossing frontiers … border guards … the
cordon sanitaire.
”

He could only stare at her. She had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen. The palest of green.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

She straightened her beret, which had tipped askew. “Tunbridge Wells.”

“And what do you do in Tunbridge Wells?”

“Do?” She shrugged. “Study history and economics at Southborough College. Live with my parents, but surely—”

“And what does your father do?”

“Father? He's in the church. A bishop, actually. But let's not talk about me. I'm frightfully dull. I want to know about
you.
You must have had all sorts of thrilling adventures. Have you crossed swords with the
Fascisti
in Italy?”

“Italy? No—not in Italy.” He stared at her for a long time and then leaned toward her. “Tell me something,” he asked earnestly. “Do you like—
horses?
”

“Y
OU MUST LIE
down,” Winifred said. “I'll ring for a doctor.”

“No, I'm fine,” Jacob said. Keeping his head tilted back, the handkerchief—now crimson—pressed to his nose, he stretched out on the sofa. “Nothing broken. I can tell.”

“You took a frightful beating. Oh, those rotters!”

“You can't blame them, Winnie. They were only doing their job.”

“Job!”

“Jew-bashing. An ancient if not exactly honorable profession.”

“You're making a joke of it,” she said, an edge to her voice.

“No, I'm not. I assure you I'm not. You might go in the kitchen and chip off some ice—and bring a bottle of bubbly while you're at it. The nineteen thirteen Clicquot will do.”

“I hope Martin was all right,” she said as she came back into the room with the ice wrapped in a towel. “I didn't see him.”

“He was at the head of the parade. Quite safe and sound. He'll have a few choice words to write about
that.
”

Winifred knelt beside the sofa and replaced the bloody handkerchief with the cold towel. “That should stop the bleeding.”

“You're a good woman, Winnie.”

“Forgoing modesty, I quite agree.”

“Even if you did forget the champagne.”

“You can have a drink later. Alcohol stops the blood from clotting.”

He sat up, pressing the towel to his nose. “I think it's stopped.” He removed the towel tentatively. “Yes. The tap is off.”

“Keep your head back—just in case it isn't.”

He smiled at her, reached out and touched her hair. “It's been quite a day for you, hasn't it, Winnie?”

“A bit hectic.”

“I find the paradox amusing. The colonel's lady marching in a peace parade.”

She eyed him gravely. “I told Fenton I was a pacifist before he married me. It didn't matter to him.”

“God, no. It wouldn't have mattered to old Fenton if you'd been a cannibal.”

She stood up. “I'll get the champagne. I could stand a drink myself.”

“Is there anything troubling you, Winnie?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I'm a perceptive sort of bloke. I feel—vibrations.”

She put a hand to her throat and toyed with the top button of her blouse. “Fenton's been gone for ten months now. They can keep him there for years, can't they? They might grant him some leave in another year—and then again, they might not. Their whole point is to drive him out of the army, isn't it?”

“Yes. I'm afraid it is.”

“And he'll never break. He'll never give in.”

“I can't see him doing it, no.”

“I love him very much, but I'm human—just as Fenton is human. Did he tell you that he had an affair when he was stationed in Ireland?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. It didn't mean anything, though.”

“Not to him, perhaps. It meant a great deal to the girl. She sent him letters, which I inadvertently opened. It was quite a shock. But I couldn't really blame him. He must have been horribly lonely in Shannon. It gave him—comfort. For a little while.”

“I suppose it did.”

“It took me some time to get over it, but I can understand now.”

“You're a woman of great compassion—and tolerance.”

She gave him a quizzical look. “I detect the barest shadow of mockery in your tone.”

“That's hardly surprising.” He stood up with a groan and dropped the icy towel on the carpet. “I view almost everything with a degree of amusement—
bitter
amusement most of the time. Perhaps it's because I'm quicker than most people. I grasp the heart of things while others are still fumbling around the edges.”

He was standing very close to her and she could feel her breath catch. She put her hand to her throat again, fingers playing with the blouse button.

He smiled, almost sadly. “You want very much to undo that button, don't you, Winnie? Almost as much as I want you to undo it. But something blocks the act. That terrible word ‘morality.' Your husband—my oldest friend. And if I asked you to go to bed with me, would the sky collapse on our heads? Would we burn eternally in hell? Or would we just, as dear friends, comfort one another—for a little while?”

H
E STROKED HER
breasts and then kissed her nipples—a kiss for each. When he rested his cheek against hers, he could taste the salt of tears.

“Not regret, I hope?”

She shook her head and raised herself on one elbow. A little sun still filtered into the bedroom, falling across her nakedness like a pale spotlight.

“No, Jacob. I feel—very happy. You're a wonderful lover.”

“It's my female qualities, I imagine. I understand women.”

“Yes, you do. Do you understand why I'm crying?”

“Of course. You miss Fenton more than ever. Being held … being loved …” He sat up and turned to her, easing her down on her back. “I love you, Winnie. God help me, but I do. I have a regret. I know that when you leave this bed you'll never come back to it. It doesn't matter. I had you for a fraction of time. 'Twill suffice. And I give you a promise. I'll get that thickheaded colonel back to you. I don't know how just yet—it'll take some thought—but I'll do it, Winnie. I swear on your loveliness, I'll do it.”

T
HERE WERE TIMES
when he was almost overwhelmed by the sadness of memory. He felt it most keenly at Abingdon Pryory, when walking through Leith Woods or while crossing the meadows near Burgate House. The feeling of loss would fade in time, he was certain of that. All wounds healed eventually. It was a question of facing up to the reality of time. It was the spring of 1922, not the happy springs of 1913 or 1914. Those years were gone. Utterly past—and so many things with them.