Don’t be idiotic, she told herself. No-one believes in hell any more, it’s just something made up to frighten people. And, in any case, hell, if it existed, could hardly be worse than this. Concentrating hard on these thoughts, and on putting one foot safely in front of the other, she reached Sloane Square station, bought a ticket to Piccadilly Circus, and set about picking her way through the recumbent bodies on the platform, breathing through her mouth to minimise the smell of packed humanity and latrine buckets. Afterwards, she told herself that she hadn’t known where she was heading, but it wasn’t true. By the time she’d reached the King’s Road she’d already known that she would go to Claude.
FIFTY-ONE
Sitting on the sofa at Jermyn Street, Claude held Diana’s hand while she gazed tearfully at the hulking furniture and dismal paintings that surrounded them, and tried to collect herself. ‘He was drunk,’ she said. ‘He tried to rape me.’
‘Impossible, darling,’ said Claude, lightly. ‘One can’t rape one’s own wife. One can only rape,’ he stroked her thigh, ‘other people’s.’ Even in her emotional state - she’d done nothing but sob for the first five minutes - Diana could sense the depth of his unease, his desire not to be drawn in.
‘But he did,’ she persisted. She needed comfort, vindication - anger on her behalf - not this superficial dismissal of her predicament.
‘You can’t really blame him, darling.’ Claude stroked her arm. ‘A warrior off to the war, and all that . . . Besides, I had the impression you rather enjoyed that sort of thing.’
‘That’s a horrible thing to say!’
‘True, though. It means that you, my darling, can enjoy yourself without having to feel bad about it afterwards.’
‘Don’t!’
‘Oh, stop making such a fuss,’ said Claude, irritably. ‘You’re making a mess of your face. Still, it’s nothing that soap and water can’t fix.’
‘I think,’ said Diana, with as much dignity as she could muster, ‘that I’ll leave.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. We’re in the middle of an air-raid. Go and wash your face, and I’ll fix you a drink.’
Diana got up and went to the bathroom. He doesn’t want to know, she thought. She supposed she couldn’t blame him for it; apart from anything else, there was the sheer impropriety of complaining to one’s lover about one’s husband, but the disappointment, on top of everything else, was hard to bear.
‘That’s better,’ said Claude, when she returned, clean, with a freshly powdered nose. ‘You look lovely in that dress. Mind you,’ he added, handing her her drink, ‘you’ll look even better out of it.’
‘You don’t understand.’ Diana was unable to contain herself, ‘that’s not why I—’ The rest of the sentence was lost as the building shook and blast rattled the windows.
‘It’s getting closer,’ said Claude, putting his arm round her waist. ‘We’ll be safer in bed, and much, much more comfortable.’ He nuzzled her cheek with his lips.
Diana stared at him. Explanation would be pointless. He didn’t, or wouldn’t, understand. I shouldn’t have come here, she thought. I should have gone to Lally. Why hadn’t she? It hadn’t even occurred to her. Am I really so in thrall to this man? She shook her head in self-disgust and, too tired to resist, allowed Claude to steer her into the bedroom. She stood, doll-like, and let herself be undressed, and then followed Claude to his mattress under the propped-up bed frame and let him do as he wanted.
When he’d finished, he rubbed her cheek with the back of his hand and said, ‘There. That was what you needed, wasn’t it?’
No, Diana thought. I needed something else entirely. She wanted to ask, is this all I am to you, but she didn’t dare.
‘He didn’t accuse you of anything, did he?’ asked Claude.
‘Accuse me?’
‘Of adultery.’
Wearily, Diana shook her head.
‘Good,’ said Claude. ‘That means he doesn’t know about us.’ He patted her on the bottom with an air of satisfaction.
That’s all he cares about, Diana thought. Lally’s right, he doesn’t take me seriously. Why should he? Lying awake while he slept beside her, it occurred to her, as she considered the evening’s events, that Guy might have been drinking in order to get up the courage to see her - or, more than see her, to . . . That was horrible.
She
was horrible. Everything was horrible. Listening to Claude’s breathing in the silence after the raid, she thought,
he
would never have to get drunk to face a woman. Did that make him better, or worse, than Guy? She didn’t know. All she did know for certain, as she lay beside Claude, was that she had never felt so lonely in her entire life.
Returning to Tite Street from Claude’s flat in the chilly grimness of early morning, Diana had found a scrawled, almost illegible note on her dressing table in the middle of a litter of hairpins, loose powder, and overturned boxes and bottles.
Sorry. Shouldn’t have come. G
. She wondered, briefly, if Guy would try to contact her again before he went overseas, and decided it was unlikely. After all, she thought dully, what was there to say?
Claude had been asleep when she’d crawled out from the makeshift shelter of his bed just after dawn, and she hadn’t woken him to say goodbye. She supposed she ought to have left him a note, but she’d been too dispirited. The worst thing about it was that the realisation of how little Claude was able to give her didn’t make her love him any the less. You poor old heartbroken thing, you, jeered the worldly voice in her head, it can’t come as a surprise. Which, Diana reflected, it didn’t, really. From the beginning her intuition - not to mention warnings from F-J and Lally and, it seemed, everyone else - had told her that Claude was heartless. In any case, she thought, I’m the one committing adultery, not Claude. He’s got nothing to lose.
You’re a bitch, Diana.
With Guy’s slurred words echoing in her head, she slumped in the armchair, too depressed to cry. She wondered if Guy would write to Evie about what had happened and, if so, what he would say. At least he didn’t know where she’d gone when she fled from the flat. Evie would, though, she thought. Evie would be bound to guess instantly. And then . . .
If this is the end of my marriage, thought Diana, why can’t I
feel
something? Guy was right - she was a bitch. Well, she’d got what she deserved, hadn’t she?
FIFTY-TWO
Peverell Montague MP was a tall, thin man with a tallow-coloured face, an impressive white moustache and an expression that reminded Stratton of one of Jenny’s mother’s favourite sayings, about looking as if you were in the middle of a long chew on a dry prune. He also had a stoop that made it appear as if he had an invisible weight attached to the end of his long nose. The weight seemed to double in heaviness as Forbes-James explained about the raid on Wymark’s flat, until the man’s forehead was almost resting on his crossed arms. So inert did he seem that Stratton jumped in his hard prison chair when Montague jerked his head up and banged his fist on the table.
‘This is an outrage! When will I be able to see my solicitor?’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Forbes-James.
‘I shall say nothing until I have spoken to him.’
‘It may be,’ said Forbes-James, coolly, ‘that your solicitor will be unwilling to act for you.’
‘Nonsense. And I shall say nothing until I know what crime I am to be charged with.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not how it works,’ said Forbes-James, calmly. ‘Your case will be heard by an advisory committee, who will hear each prisoner held under Regulation 18B, and will advise the Home Secretary about the suitability of release.’
‘So one man’s whim is to be the law?’
‘Your case will—’
‘What case? If there is no charge, there is no case! If I cannot be properly charged with a crime, then I have committed no offence. The idea that an Englishman may be held indefinitely in prison, without any proper legal charge, is a monstrous perversion of justice. My cell is infested with lice. Keeping men in these conditions is not acceptable.’
‘We are acting for His Majesty’s Government, Mr Montague.’
‘Exactly! For people who chose not to fight in the Great War. They are the traitors and cowards, not I.’
‘Is Mr Churchill a coward and a traitor?’
‘Greenwood, Morrison. You know very well who I am talking about. Yours is the treachery, gentlemen. It may be respectable, but it is still treachery.’
‘We are acting in the interests of national security.’
‘You are acting in the interests of an unprincipled bunch of Jew-ridden politicians who want to demolish everything this country stands for. What happened to freedom of speech? Gone! Habeas Corpus? Gone! And with it—’
‘In a state of national emergency.’
‘Which would never have arisen if we had had - as we still could have - a negotiated peace! It is perfectly possible, gentlemen, to negotiate with Herr Hitler, and quite insane to allow this lunacy to go on for one single moment longer than it has to.’
‘Peace under what terms?’
‘Herr Hitler is a reasonable man.’
‘So reasonable, in fact, that he is currently raining down death and destruction on British women and children.’
‘As we are doing to German women and children.
We
declared war on Germany,
we
bombed Berlin. An aggressor should not be surprised by retaliation, and you cannot, surely, be labouring under the illusion that we can do anything to help Poland now.’
Stratton couldn’t see where any of this was getting them. Montague was a zealot. He talked and gestured as if he were addressing a rally, not sitting cooped up in a tiny, airless prison room, and he obviously wasn’t going to help them.
‘You don’t deny,’ said Forbes-James, ‘that your organisation, the Right Club, exists for the purposes of disseminating pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish propaganda?’
‘Our propaganda, as you call it, is wholly patriotic. Besides, I have very little to do with it.’
‘Your wife does.’
Montague looked as if he were about to say something, but Forbes-James carried on, ‘Would you be prepared to defend this country in the case of a German invasion?’
‘I consider that question an insult.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I would do my utmost to defend my country. Nothing would induce me to harm Great Britain, or her Empire.’
‘And yet you are acting in a manner which will harm them both.’
‘No!’ Montague thumped the table again. ‘I am a loyal British subject.’
‘I hardly think so.’
‘If you think that everyone whose views are at variance with the government is disloyal, then—’
‘A person is either loyal or disloyal, Mr Montague. Talking like a politician does not change that. Those are the rules of the game. You cannot begin to invent them.’
‘Unlike you people, who can change the law at a stroke.’
‘We are going round in circles, Mr Montague. Tell me, has your organisation received funds from Germany?’
‘That is an outrageous suggestion.’
‘Is it? You have, after all, met Signor Mussolini.’
‘I have never denied it.’
‘The British Union of Fascists is known to have received funds from Italy.’
‘That is untrue.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Sir Oswald has said so.’
‘He has said he had nothing to do with the finances of the movement. That’s not quite the same thing, is it?’
‘He has stated that no money should be accepted except from British subjects.’
‘But the origin of that money may be a different matter entirely. However, I am not here to talk about that.’
‘Then why are you here, other than to insult me?’
‘To ask for your help.’ Stratton shifted back in his chair and stared hard at his shoes. What the hell was Forbes-James playing at?
‘My help?’ echoed Montague.
‘We will, of course, be speaking to your wife, and we wanted to clarify a few matters first.’ Forbes-James paused and scrutinised Montague for a moment, before adding, in a casual voice, ‘Before we go to Holloway.’ The change in the atmosphere was as abrupt and shocking as if an electric current had been passed through the small room.
‘
What
?’ Montague, his face now blue-white, cords standing out in his neck and jaw working, stared at them.
‘Of course,’ Forbes-James continued, as if he had absolutely no idea of the devastating effect of his deftly primed grenade, ‘if we don’t have the necessary information from you, then . . .’
‘Wait! Are you telling me that you have arrested my wife?’
‘Yes,’ said Forbes-James, blandly. ‘Last night. I assumed you were aware of the fact.’
‘I had no idea of it,’ he said. ‘You . . . you can’t.’
‘We can, Mr Montague. We have.’
‘But that’s . . . it’s preposterous, it’s . . . it’s . . .’