The Choice Page 8

  Slowly, stiffly, her limbs heavy with dread, Eleanor walks towards the bed. She looks down at her father. His hair clings to his forehead, damp with sweat, half-obscuring the wound. He lies on his side, his arms flung out across the bed, as if he were pleading for help. His violet-blue eyes are open, their colour clouded and misty. He looks startled, as if death has taken him unawares, in mid-sentence, when he still had a great deal more to say. His face seems thinner and paler than a few hours before, making the blood on his bandage appear more virulent.

  At that particular moment, Eleanor loves her darling Daddy so much she’s sure her heart will melt through her body and lie, distended and panting, at her feet.

  “He can’t be dead, Mummy. Are you sure—”

  “Quite sure.” Anne sounds as if a hand is strangling her throat. She stands up, briefly laying her fingertips on Walter’s eyelids. The violet-blue light disappears. She bends to kiss his lips. “Your father was looking at me, trying to tell me something. Then he gave a great gasp, coughed and sighed… And it was all over.”

  “I can’t believe it…” Eleanor can hardly manage to get air into her own lungs. “Dr Fagg—”

  “Vile, slovenly, stupid man. Blind as a bat. We should have taken your father straight to hospital. It’s too late now.” Anne clutches Eleanor’s arm. “Oh, God, Eleanor, I feel faint… I’m going to be sick.”

  Eleanor guides her to the nearest chair. “Sit down, Mummy.” Her voice trembles. She wants to shriek and wail, to pull Walter into her arms, smother him with kisses, bring him miraculously back to life. But she knows that if she doesn’t behave in a calm and rational fashion, Anne will go to pieces. “Put your head between your knees. I’ll bring you some tea and toast. And let’s have some air. It’s horribly stuffy in here.”

  Eleanor moves to the curtains, heaves them aside, struggles to open a window. A layer of frozen snow crunches along the outside ledge; fingers of pale sky point towards the dawn. Eleanor gasps as the bitter air floods her lungs.

  Her father’s voice echoes in her head. “Find Moira for me.”

  She bites her lip, swallowing her sobs, clenching her fists. Even if she knew where to start looking or who she’s trying to find, it’s too late for her father to see Moira again.

  Anne starts to weep, huddling in her chair, rocking to and fro. Eleanor kneels, flinging her arms around her. “Don’t cry, Mummy. I’ll look after you… Everything will be all right. Only don’t cry. You know how Daddy hated it when either of us—”

  “But he’s not here, is he?” Anne raises her face to Eleanor’s. “I can cry for an entire week and your father will never know.”

  Dr Fagg arrives, red-faced and apologetic, his neck-tie stained with breakfast egg. He prods at Walter’s body, asking endless questions. Anne screams at him to stop and orders him out of the house. At the front door, he presses a bottle of tablets into Eleanor’s hand.

  “Make sure your mother takes two of these at bedtime. It will help her sleep. If you need me, you know where I am. I’m profoundly sorry for your loss, Miss Drummond. Your father must have sustained multiple internal injuries.”

  Walter’s body is taken away for examination. Weary dead-eyed men in uniform tramp silently through the house, leaving behind the chill of the street, clumps of melting snow and the smell of disinfectant.

  Vera spring-cleans Anne and Walter’s bedroom. She changes the bed-linen, lays fresh logs in the fire and washes the windows, as if the cleanliness might energise Walter’s absent spirit and bring him home.

  Eleanor stumbles across the street to the Post Office. She rewrites the telegram, changing its message to FATHER KILLED IN ACCIDENT STOP. The postmistress stares at her, round-eyed, saying she’s terribly sorry, Mr Drummond had been a lovely man, always a kind word for everyone. Eleanor rushes out of the shop, determined not to cry, her face fixed into stolid silence.

  Worried neighbours, alerted by the ominous comings and goings, gossiping of runaway horses and Mr Drummond’s injuries, tap at their front door. Vera, her eyes red, her hair shoved into its cap, brusquely dismisses them.

  Anne takes a hot bath but has no strength to get dressed. She wafts around the house in her husband’s crumpled dressing-gown, her hair hanging down her back in a conker-brown plait. Hoarse with weeping, she hovers near the fire, poking the logs until they crumble and die.

  Eleanor sits alone in her room, stunned, chilled to the bone, shivering with shock, frightened that if she starts to cry she will not be able to stop. She can hardly believe she’ll never talk to her father again: will never read to him, stand beside him in church and listen to their voices singing in harmony, hear him laugh at one of her jokes, watch him mix glowing oily colours and blobbing them onto a canvas in his studio.

  Walter had been the touchstone of Eleanor’s being. Separated from him for the first time when she went to Somerville, she’d seen him every week during the previous term. He’d driven into Oxford, parked his beloved canary yellow Bullnose Morris in Beaumont Street, and then taken her shopping in the Covered Market or to tea at The Cadena Café. She told him about her week, her friends, the latest gossip.

  “Last night, we were in Rosemary’s room drinking cocoa and discussing underwear. Lucilla said she’s never washed a pair of stockings in her life. She just goes out and buys new ones… But then her father is one of the richest pork butchers in England. Why can’t you be more like that, Daddy?”

  Walter had roared with laughter. “I shall buy you six pairs of stockings immediately, Miss La-De-Dah Drummond.”

  And he had…

  Eleanor realises with a dark swoop of her heart that everything she has ever done, every achievement, large or small, that she has forged in her short life, had been for her father’s approval. So she could watch his eyes gleam, feel the warm clasp of his fingers, see the approving nod of his head, hear his whispered,

  “Brilliant! Well done, Ellie! That’s my girl!”

  She cannot imagine how she will live without him.

  At breakfast the next morning, the copy of The Times, the newspaper that Walter always read from cover to cover, is edged in black. King George V had died at five minutes to midnight. A pictorial history of his reign leads with a photo of “His late Majesty” broadcasting to the nation: his beard dapper, his cuffs spotless, his face intent, a pale carnation at his buttonhole: the very picture of royal dignity.

  A small photo is published of the new king, the “Ambassador of Empire”. Although forty-one, he looks younger: a slight figure, swamped by his decorated, high-collared uniform, his thick blond hair immaculately parted, his pale eyes glittering and anxious. Is he “fitted for a great task”? Could anyone be? Didn’t people grow into the roles they were given?

  Eleanor stares blindly at the headlines, worrying. Now her own father is dead, she herself will have to grow into a new role! Whatever that will be…

  The state funeral will go according to its meticulous plan, with hundreds of people to help. Eleanor has a funeral of her own to organise. She feels desperately alone. And she has no idea how to go about it or what to do first.

  The Uncut Stone

  A Royal Anteroom, January 1936

  “That will be all, Wilkins…”

  “Do you have everything you need, sir?”

  “Everything.” The man glances across the table at his three companions. Their brandy glasses are full, their cigars smoulder. The air hangs heavy with tension.

  “Make sure nobody disturbs us, Wilkins.”

  “Yes, of course, sir.”

  “He has gone to bed, hasn’t he?… With or without Mrs Simpson?”

  “With, sir… Quite definitely with… They were heard—”

  “Excellent!”

  Wilkins clicks himself away, out of sight but not out of hearing. Never that! Someone has to take sober notes…

&nb
sp; Cigars are tapped. Elaborately delicate glasses are held between enormously fat fingers. Fleshy lips sip.

  The man hoists himself to his feet. He sways, but ever so gently.

  “Let us now, on this auspicious evening, raise a toast… To our Proper Plan… We need a code name for it.” He clears his well-fed throat. “Are there any suggestions?”

  The exorbitantly expensive chandelier twinkles benignly over the four conspiritors.

  One of them says, “Why don’t we call our little enterprise The Uncut Stone?”

  The men guffaw. One slaps his thigh. The second twirls his moustache. The third clutches his round belly and hoots with mirth.

  The chandelier jangles with glee.

  The fourth, who’d suggested it, blushes with pride. The colour of his face is naturally vivid. Now it glistens like an over-ripe Victoria plum.

  “The Uncut Stone it is.”

  Cigars are raised to eager lips. The fog in the room deepens. Plumes of smoke gently caress the chandelier.

  “Now, shall we get down to the business of the evening?”

  “It’s really very simple.” This is a new voice: the man whose hair shines thick and silvery under the foggy light. “We allow that jewel-heavy bitch to think she’s going to make it as Queen Wallis. We allow our party-loving, doe-eyed, drink-sodden, so-called King of England and ruler of the Empire to become completely obsessed—”

  “As if he isn’t already!”

  “And deeply involved. So deeply in the mire of ‘love’ he can only enmesh himself up to his neck and beyond his eyeballs… And then we pull the plug. So they go down their love-sick drain into the muck-heaps of Hitler’s Germany.”

  “Which is precisely where they belong!”

  There is a moment’s silence.

  Eyes meet, lock and then smile.

  Only the cigar smoke drifts.

  “And The Uncut Stone can take her precious jewels with her.”

  “Can anyone part her from them? They say she even sleeps with them! They’re draped around her everywhere: breasts – not that she really has much up-front – thighs, around her ankles, hanging from her scrawny neck, dangling on her lazy wrists, decorating her ugly great hands—”

  More guffaws.

  Another silence.

  “Her greed, her jewels, his nursery obsessions, his money, their filthy perverted drunken nights…”

  The man swigs at his brandy until every drop has vanished down his throat.

  “They can all go down the plughole, my dear companions in arms.” His voice hardens with fury. “But not with their hands around our beloved country’s neck. If those two arrogant fascist perverts think they’re taking our country with them, they can think again.”

  The group’s mastermind lurches to his feet.

  He refills the empty glasses, his fat hand shaking. He’s surprisingly tall, with broad shoulders, thick legs and an air of natural authority. A captain of cricket. A head boy. A good runner, a sensible drinker – and expert at undressing shy ladies at four o’clock in the afternoon. Any shy lady will fit his bill, as long as she’s safely married and plump as a dove.

  “Right you are, my dearest companions… We must get to work and fast.”

  He scrabbles in his pocket for a small, leather-bound notebook and a top-of-the-range Parker pen.

  “I suggest that first we start to plan the weekend in Blenheim Palace. Everything stands or falls on those few precious days in that most beautiful of houses. A Friday to Monday in June… Are we all agreed? That will be when we make Mr Simpson an offer he cannot refuse!”

  He flings onto the table a coin of the realm.

  “That’s for starters. I want anyone who is anyone to put into our mutual purse all they can afford – and then a whole lot more.”

  The glasses are raised and lowered, the men clamber to their feet.

  “Are we agreed? All those in favour of The Uncut Stone Affair say ‘Aye’.”

  The chandelier almost twinkles to the floor above the din.

  “Aye, aye, aye!”

  “I like the sound of this affair!”

  “Aye, aye!”

  Careful Planning

  Woodstock, 1936

  Vera – sturdy, loyal, practical, devoted – comes to Eleanor’s rescue. They sit over coffee to discuss the details, to “make a proper list” as Vera calls it. They need to arrange a date for the funeral with the rector, decide an order of service, and meet with the funeral director.

  Vera clatters her cup on its saucer. “You must ring your father’s art group, dear heart. They’ll be expecting to have their class with him this afternoon… Why don’t you speak to Rosie Perkins? She’s their unofficial leader. Explain what’s happened and she can tell everyone else.” She swallows, her face pale, her eyes red with weeping. “People will be devastated… They’ll want to come to the funeral. You know how popular your dear father was.”

  She leans forward to take Eleanor’s hand.

  “You should be wearing black, out of respect. I’ve dug a black cardigan out of your wardrobe, and a black skirt. They both look a bit shabby but nobody will notice. And that summer coat of yours. I took it to the shop on the corner. They’ll dye it black for you immediately. I said it was urgent.”

  Eleanor’s hand trembles over her cup. “What would I do without you, Vera? You think of everything.”

  ***

  The rest of Tuesday is consumed with telephone calls and visits connected to the funeral. Eleanor will not let herself think about how she feels. She only knows she has to be sensible and cool-headed. She discusses the date and order of service with the Rector; the coffin and choice of flowers with the funeral director; what they’ll eat and drink at the wake with Vera; how they’ll arrange the furniture.

  Every now and then Eleanor pinches herself to make sure she isn’t living in some ghastly dream. Keep hold of reality, she tells herself. This week will be the worst. You have no choice but to grin and bear it.

  Her mother does neither, relapsing into a bitterness matched only by the weather. She seems to be not so much grief-stricken that Walter has died, as furious. Her tears stop; her mouth closes in a thin-lipped silence. She lies in bed, hollow-eyed, staring out of the window, refusing the tempting snacks Vera prepares.

  When Eleanor summons the courage to say they should be making arrangements for the funeral, Anne punches a pillow and hurls it across the room.

  “Do whatever you want, Eleanor. Keep it simple and let’s get it over with.”

  “I thought Friday morning, Mummy. Would that be—”

  “Fine. Friday. As soon as possible.” Her mother clutches the sheet. “Tell Vera I’ll wear my black suit and the feathery hat with the veil.”

  “You’d better wear a coat, too, Mummy. The weather’s atrocious—”

  “I don’t care if I freeze to death. In fact, I’d positively welcome it.”

  Ignoring her bitterness, Eleanor ploughs on. “And the wake… Vera and I thought we should ask people to come back here—”

  “I suppose so. Just don’t ask me to play lady hostess!”

  “But everyone will expect—”

  “To hell with everyone!” Her mother’s eyes blaze with fury. “Your father cared more about a stupid colt from Blenheim than seeing me safely home from church. And on my birthday, too!”

  “I’m sure he never meant—”

  “He was the most thoughtless, bird-brained… Never a care about tomorrow. Always lived in his own precious moment. Now he’s left me to it, an humiliated widow. The pointlessness of his death is the only remarkable thing about it. Why should I care who drinks his whisky and murmurs ridiculous platitudes?”

  Eleanor creeps out of her mother’s room into her own. Guilt and anxiety settle on her shoulders l
ike a film of dust. She had pulled her father out of church to speed up the celebrations and get back to Somerville. If they’d emerged only a few minutes later, Sprinter would have vanished into his panic-stricken world down Market Street – and Walter would still be alive.

  Anne has not spelled this out, but Eleanor’s aware that the anger in her mother’s eyes is partly directed at her. She wants to say she’s sorry, to hold Anne’s hand and plan the funeral. Instead, the gulf between them widens. In the face of her mother’s anger, Eleanor maintains a politeness that sounds cold and formal, as if they’re strangers. The harder she tries to make things better, the worse everything becomes.

  She crawls downstairs, only to discover that Anne has unwrapped all her birthday presents in private. Eleanor’s gift of cushion covers and silk threads sits alone on a chair, looking vulnerable and unwanted. If only, if only she’d never bought them…

  On the Train

  Paddington to Oxford,

  February 1936

  The man is running so hard and so fast that every breath in his lungs brings blood to his eyeballs. Whenever possible he curses and swears, endlessly berating himself. He is so disorganised. He never wears a watch. He leaves everything to the last minute. He’d known he was cutting things fine – very fine – and now he’s sure that luck can no longer be relied upon. He has pushed things just that little bit too far.

  Trains wait for no man.

  The train he wants, he needs, he must God help him catch, will puff away without him.

  But it doesn’t.

  “Is this the train to Oxford?”

  The man sounds like a lunatic, as if he has just fallen from the bitterly cold morning sky; as if he has never spoken the English language before; as if this is the only time he has ever needed to catch anything.

  The guard shoots the man a glance of bitter disdain. He nods briefly, crooks a contemptuous thumb in the direction of the steaming dragon lying in wait to devour all who have the courage to board her.