Most people held the view that war simply couldn’t happen again, that no politician would be foolish enough to allow it, after the horrifying lessons of a mere twenty years earlier.
Ned could still hear his father’s voice raging about the iniquity of what had come to be known as the Munich crisis the previous September. ‘Bloody disgraceful load of pacifists in charge of the country! They should all be strung up, Chamberlain first, allowing Germany to annex whatever it likes. Why can’t they get out there and face the bastards down?’
There had been a few pockets of action immediately after Munich; huge barrage balloons appeared over London to protect it from German bombers, but swiftly disappeared again, deemed more trouble than they were worth. One had been caught in electric cables, five immediately broke adrift. There were calls from Herbert Morrison, leader of the London County Council, for volunteers to the Auxiliary Fire Service, but only a handful of people had turned up: in response to the assumption that three thousand firefighting appliances would be required, it transpired that to date only ninety-nine were available. And when the Canon of Westminster decided he should set an example by attending lectures on a first-aid course, the better to care for the thousands of casualties that would clearly result after a German attack, the initial talk was on the treatment of snake bites.
The country needed his father, Ned thought, or rather, someone like him, dragging buried heads from the sand, forcing a realistic appraisal of what was happening. The nearest anybody seemed to have got to seriously defending the realm and its inhabitants at this stage had been in the issuing of gas masks. It was generally felt, learning from the lessons of the Great War, that the greatest danger would be from poisonous gas and roughly ninety per cent of the population of London had been given them: the shortest expedition to the corner shop was not supposed to be undertaken without one.
Well, there was nothing he could do about it; except continue to listen to his father. That would be his war effort for the time being. If war was declared, then he wasn’t sure what he would want to do.
The announcement looked so extremely splendid there on the court pages of The Times and the Telegraph; Diana still couldn’t quite believe it had happened. She kept smiling at the ring on her finger, which had been there for nearly a week, but she still hadn’t got used to the look of it, the feel of it, even. It was very beautiful, a row of five diamonds, catching and reflecting the light every time she moved her hand. Johnathan had had it in his pocket and he’d produced it after she’d said yes. It was all very romantic. He said he was sorry it wasn’t a family heirloom – with his being the third son they’d run out of those – so he’d chosen it and he hoped so much she’d like it. If she didn’t, they could change it; the shop in Hatton Garden had agreed to that and they could choose another. She didn’t want that, she loved the way he’d chosen it, it was so romantic, a bit unlike him really, and she told him it was perfect and she loved it and she loved him, which she did of course, so very much. She couldn’t imagine now how she could ever have thought she didn’t.
She knew when she had actually fallen in love with him. Looking back, it was that day they first went hunting together, the first weekend he’d been to stay, and thank goodness her mother had thought of asking him, otherwise she’d have been stuck with Ned Welles, and what a pain he’d turned out to be. Good-looking, and very amusing, of course, but far too pleased with himself. That father of his was just a joke – no wonder Ned’s mother, with her really ridiculous name, Persephone, had run away. It was quite a story, that: he was an artist who was painting her and she fell in love with him and Sir James was – or so Ned said – more upset about him taking the painting, which had cost the earth, than his wife.
Diana’d often wondered if Ned, who was spectacularly good-looking, took after the wicked and beautiful Persephone. She asked Michael if Ned ever saw his mother, and Michael said only about once a year, that Ned was still terribly hurt and couldn’t forgive her for abandoning him. It was no wonder really he wasn’t like any of the other men she knew, with that sort of thing in his background.
She wondered if he’d seen the announcement and what he’d thought. Not that she cared, of course. He just wasn’t her type, never had been, right from the beginning, and she’d been so happy when Johnathan told her he was in love with her.
Now they were engaged, officially, and his parents were coming down to stay with her parents to discuss Things with a capital T. They had decided already that it mustn’t be a long engagement, because of the state of the world, but if war was declared – and her father seemed to think it was inevitable – Johnathan would want to join his father’s old regiment. If he was going to do that and leave her and go away to France, she wanted a home of her own in London. She could decorate it to her own taste, and she and Johnathan could give smart parties and she could have her own life at last. Well, shared with him, of course. She couldn’t wait to be a good wife, look after him, and she thought she would learn to cook and entertain his clients and—‘Diana, darling!’ It was her mother. ‘Telephone. Johnathan.’
He rang a lot at the moment; it was lovely. He kept telling her how much he enjoyed just talking to her and they were going to start house-hunting next week. Oh, it was all so exciting.
She ran out to the hall, picked up the telephone.
‘Hello, darling,’ Diana said. ‘How are you today? Have you seen the announcement – isn’t it all too exciting?’
‘Come on, come on, pass pass pass – Rory, not down there, look out, come on, now, run run – Callum, that’s good, go on, Mick, you too.’
Tom stood still for a moment, looked at the football pitch covered with little boys, who were in their turn covered with mud, and thought how very happy he was. It was a good moment. Very good.
Becoming a school governor had expanded into being football coach on Saturday afternoons. He would have liked to do so after school as well, but he couldn’t get away from Pemberton’s early enough. It didn’t seem to matter; he was a good coach, and the boys loved him. Him and the sessions. He had changed football at St Joseph’s Primary from being little better than an excuse for the boys to run up and down into a game that was to be given serious consideration and effort.