Pantheon (15 page)

On the other side stood what he estimated were two dozen gentlemen dressed, as he was, in white tie, around a table laden with silver, china and crystal, apparently set for a feast. He wondered what his censorious cab driver would make of this little scene, where there was not a ration book in sight.
Don’t you know there’s a war on?

He checked his watch, worried that he had arrived too late. But his host, standing at the head of the table moved fast to dispel any anxiety. ‘Ah, Hastings, perfect timing. We’re just about to drink a toast. Come on someone, give the man a glass! That’s it. All right then.’ He raised his flute of champagne, so that it caught the light from the candles and even the glow of his white hair. ‘To the Right Club!’

The other twenty-odd men, each standing behind his chair at the table, echoed the words back, full and hearty. None heartier or more enthusiastic than the young American in their midst who felt the uniquely delicious joy of the man who had
arrived
. He could hear his own voice in among the chorus as he too chanted, ‘To the Right Club!’

James must have visibly weakened, perhaps he had even stumbled backwards, because the next thing he could remember was watching the steam rise from a thick mug of sweet tea, placed on the near side of the harbourmaster’s desk before him. He could not remember when it had appeared or who had asked for it.

Canada.
What sense did that make? Leaving him was one thing, but to head to the other side of the world? Why would Florence do such a thing? Had living with him really become that unbearable?

Meanwhile, he could hear Hunter speaking. The man seemed to be answering a question James could not remember asking. There were knots and nautical miles in the sentences that were coming from the official’s mouth; put together, he seemed to be explaining why it was impossible for James to catch up with Florence’s ship and join her on board. Had he really asked such a question? He needed to pull himself together.

He looked at the tea in front of him. That was the way they always ended their long walks, his parents and their fellow Quaker friends. Through the New Forest or perhaps taking the chain ferry over to the Isle of Purbeck, wherever they had gone, the day would always conclude the same way. Hot cup of tea in his parents’ front room, heavily sweetened by his mother: a reward for their exertions. Somehow he guessed Rosemary Hyde allowed no such indulgences to her walking women; they needed to be lean, fit and strong if they were to lead the proletariat to the Marxist utopia or some such rubbish. No sweet tea for them.

The harbourmaster was watching him, a look that combined concern and fear, a look that said this man in my office could be capable of anything. James decided it was time to get out. He spoke with a clarity that surprised even himself. ‘Mr Hunter, I need to make an urgent telephone call in the light of the information you have so kindly given me. To Oxford. I wonder if I could use your—’

‘That’s a trunk call.’

‘It is, I’m afraid. But I will be brief, I assure you.’

The harbourmaster took a hard look at James, as if he were worried that he had taken in some kind of lunatic. In a bid to reassure him, James added that the man he needed to telephone was the master of his Oxford college. And so, after a convoluted conversation with a telephone operator and multiple clunks and clicks, he heard his own voice meet down a crackling line with that of Bernard Grey, scholar, broadcaster and guiding sage of the British intellectual left. James pictured him as he had glimpsed him just before he sped away from Oxford, in the muddy green uniform of a commanding officer of the Local Defence Volunteers, the cloth as thick as carpet. The image still struck him as ludicrous.

‘Professor Grey, it’s Dr Zennor.’

‘James, you sound terrible. Where in God’s name are you?’

‘I’m in Liverpool.’

There was a hesitation, followed by, ‘Ah. I see.’

‘I’m here because Florence has taken our son Harry on a ship bound—’ He stopped himself. ‘What do you mean, “I see”?’

‘You followed Florence to Liverpool. Did you see the ship off?’

‘No, I missed it by twenty-four hours. I don’t understand. How do you know about the ship?’

‘Are you all right, James? You sound distressed.’

The calm, consoling voice had precisely the reverse of its intended effect; James felt his initial politeness congealing into cold anger. ‘Yes, I am distressed rather. My wife has fled thousands of miles away from me and taken my child with her. And while this has come as an enormous shock to me you seem already to be in the picture. So in fact “distressed” barely begins to cover it, Professor Grey.’

‘James, I think you had better return to Oxford where we can discuss all this in person. In my lodgings. You could dine afterwards at high table. We are to be joined tonight by William Beveridge. Do you know his work? Excellent ideas on the appropriate allocation of citizen rights to those with what he calls “general defects”. Unsentimental fellow and the detail is a bit wobbly but—’

‘I have no intention of returning to Oxford, Master. I want to find my wife and my child and I now know they are nowhere near Oxford.’ He seized on the mental recording he had made and which was now playing back in his mind. ‘And what do you mean, “all this”?’

‘I’m sorry James, I’m afraid you’re not making much sense.’

‘You said “all this”. We can discuss
all this
. What did you mean by that?’

‘Oh I see. You don’t know.’

‘Know what?’ On hearing a moment’s silence, James repeated the question, shouting it this time. ‘I don’t bloody know what?’ Through the glass of the harbourmaster’s office door he could see secretaries’ heads turning and staring. For all his efforts, he was once again the crazy man who had been found sleeping rough.

Eventually Bernard Grey began speaking, his voice low and regretful, as if he had been forced into saying something he had hoped to avoid. ‘I sincerely thought someone would have informed you of this by now. At least Virginia if no one else.’

‘Master.’

‘Your wife and child are on a ship together with twenty-five Oxford mothers and approximately one hundred and twenty-five children. They are on their way to Yale College, which has graciously offered them a place of refuge during the war.’

‘Yale? In America? But she’s going to Canada.’

‘Canada is a stopping-off point. I believe they are to be accommodated at the Royal Victoria College in Montreal for a few days, before travelling by rail to New Haven in the United States.’

‘Yale,’ James repeated, uselessly. ‘In America.’ Whatever the precise geography, this seemed so much more remote. Canada at least was a dominion of the British Empire, under the same King and fighting the same war. But the United States? For the first time, he wondered if he would ever see his wife and child again.

He closed his eyes, forcing himself to focus on this moment and on the words he had just heard, ‘How long have you known about this?’

‘It’s been in the offing for several weeks.’

‘Several weeks!’ He had tortured himself with the idea that Florence had been plotting behind his back for weeks, and now here was Grey telling him that his worst fears had, in fact, been utterly realistic. ‘Several weeks,’ he said, letting the weight of that amount of time hang in the air for a while. ‘No one told me.’

‘It would appear not.’

‘Why? Why in God’s name—’

‘I’m afraid—’

‘Florence is my wife, Master Grey. Harry is my
son
.’

‘No one told you, James, because we knew what you would say.’

‘“We”? Who’s “we”?’

‘All I—’

‘You mean
you
were involved in this?’

‘I played a very minor role. Many others were far—’

‘I don’t believe this.
Lots
of you were involved, were you?
Many others,
you say
.
What, in a secret plot to take my wife and child away from me?’

‘Now, James. Calm down.’

‘Don’t you tell me to calm down,’ James said, spitting out the words. ‘You’ve just told me you conspired in the break-up of my family, sending them half way across the world. So, no, I will not be calm. I want to know why you did this. Why you and all these “many others” plotted against me like this.’

‘You see this is exactly what we were afraid of.’

‘There you go again:
we
.’

‘This ranting and raving. This paranoia. This is what scared your wife out of her wits. This is what scared her away. You’ve been like this a long time now, James. It explains why … you’re in this situation.’

That stopped him, the way Rosemary’s words had stopped him yesterday. What she had said then and what Grey said now sounded too much like the truth. Whatever help these others had given Florence, no one had forced her onto that ship: the decision to leave him, and to travel an ocean away, had been hers. More quietly than before, he spoke again. ‘And I suppose there were meetings, to iron out all the details?’

‘Yes, of course. The families involved, mothers mainly, met several times to make preparations. Helped by various university officials of course. Discussing visas, legal guardianship, that sort of thing.’

‘I don’t suppose these meetings were on Thursday evenings by any chance, were they?’

‘They were as a matter of fact, yes: 5 pm at Rhodes House.’

So that’s why she had missed the last two walks with Rosemary and her Marxist Girl Guides. She was with other mothers, planning her escape – not to Norfolk or Bedfordshire, like other evacuees, but to America.

‘And who else knew about this? About Florence I mean?’

‘James.’

‘No. Go on, who’s this “we” you mentioned?’

‘I’m not sure this is healthy.’

‘Don’t worry about that. I’d like to know.’ He was trying hard to sound reasonable, as if they were no more than two Oxford dons trading college gossip.

‘Virginia, of course. Myself. Other concerned friends.’

‘Rosemary Hyde?’

‘I don’t think it’s necessary to mention any names, James.’

‘And why did this group of “concerned” friends believe that the one person who could not be trusted with this secret was the husband and father of the woman and child concerned? Why was that then?’

‘To repeat myself: we knew what you would say.’

‘And what was that?’

‘We knew you would say no.’

He couldn’t argue. Of course he would have said no. The very idea of his family becoming evacuees across the Atlantic, he could not have discussed it, let alone approved of it. He believed a move to Herefordshire or the Cotswolds amounted to a surrender to the Third Reich; but the United States? It was abominable. It represented an abandonment of the country, as if they were pulling down the shutters and shutting up shop, leaving Britain for the Nazis to inherit. They might as well run up the white flag now. How had these other men – the fathers of those one hundred and twenty-five Oxford children – ever agreed to such a capitulation?

And yet, these convictions dragged behind them a nag of doubt. He could not quite articulate it even to himself but he could feel it. It was the guilty sense he had that these other men, these other fathers, were allowed to take such extreme action to protect their young but that he was granted no such privilege. They would perform their act of sacrifice on the battlefield or, failing that, in some war ministry or other, now relocated in Oxford. But staying put, keeping his family in England even under Nazi occupation, even in the shadow of Hitler’s bombs, was the only act of resistance available to James Zennor. If he buckled on that, then he was doing precisely nothing to defy the fascist barbarians who had killed his friend and nearly destroyed him. There was nothing else he could do. And the realization of it – that he was using a woman and a not-yet three-year-old boy vicariously, to make up for his own failure to play any part in this essential and wholly just war – filled him with shame.

And then the mental recording of the words just spoken caught up with him. ‘What was that you said?’

‘James, I really cannot stay on the telephone much longer. I—’

‘You said, “This explains why you’re in this situation.” Now, what did you mean by that?’

‘I, I, I was referring of course to your wife being on that ship. That is to say … she knew you refused all talk of evacuation, which is—’

‘No. You meant something else. You said I’ve been like this a “long time”. You meant something else, didn’t you?’

‘James, please.’

‘DIDN’T YOU?’ He bellowed it, prompting more turned heads in the outer office. When Grey spoke again, James was sure he could hear a tremble in the older man’s voice.

‘Yes, I did. It was a slip, I’m sorry.’

‘I know all about slips. They never are entirely accidental, are they? What were you trying not to say?’

‘I regret you pushing me in this manner, James. But since you seem determined to twist my arm, I was referring to your recent …’ He paused again. ‘Rejections.’

‘You mean from the civil service? From the ministries? What about them?’

‘I have already said far too much.’

And then James saw it. ‘Oh, I don’t believe it. You bastard.’

‘How dare you speak to me that way! It was not down to me. I had next to nothing to do with it. They run their own checks, their own independent assessments.’

‘But they would have consulted you. Whitehall doesn’t order a box of bloody paperclips without asking what Professor Bernard bloody Grey thinks about it.’

‘It was not like that, James. You must accept my word on that. They had already concluded that you were … not suitable for sensitive work, long before they spoke to me about you.’

‘“Not suitable for sensitive work” is that how we put it now? And I thought my lot were fond of euphemism. Crackers, is that the word you’re looking for? Poor Zennor, he’s round the twist: is that what you told them? Saw a bit too much action in Spain and now he’s out of his mind. Eh? Would that be the gist of it, Professor? The “burden of the argument” as you philosophers like to put it?’

Grey sighed and then replied quietly. ‘Something like that, yes. And this little exhibition has only confirmed the accuracy of the analysis, Dr Zennor. Now I suggest you put down the receiver and head back to Oxford where Virginia and I will see what we can do for you.’