The Edge of the Fall (4 page)

London, Peace Day, 19 July 1919

Celia

‘Well, you would have thought they could have put on a better show than this,' Emmeline said, hands folded across her great stomach. ‘We won, after all.'

‘Maybe they don't want to seem too victorious,' said Rudolf, doubtfully. ‘Who knows?'

‘I expect it will come alive when the Queen appears,' said Verena. She adjusted her hat against the white glare of the July sun, hopeless, though, for it was painfully strong, shining off the buttons on the men's coats, showing off every imperfection, dropped thread, break of colour in the clothes of those spectators in front. ‘Then things will really begin.'

They were sitting in the wooden stands on the Mall. Five rows of soldiers were marching in front of them. The stands were covered in banners, flowers, flags. They'd paid three times the normal price for their tickets to get a better spot, but they were still ten rows back and the road was obscured by the people in front. Verena's back was straight as a die, her hat like a sun on her head. All the rich people, every girl Verena had grown up with, Celia supposed, were in special boxes with an excellent view of the park. Then, tonight, they'd go to one of the Victory Balls in Spencer House, Clarence House or even Buckingham Palace. But there was no space for the de Witts, not even at one of the lesser balls in a Kensington townhouse. Who'd want a German there? They should have changed their name at the beginning of it all.

Celia sometimes wondered if people could tell. When you
looked at her family, they appeared so very respectable. Rudolf with his short beard, his great dark eyes and smart suit, Verena in public as upright as a dancer, her hair marshalled into the tightest bun imaginable, and Emmeline, the family beauty, blonde and so delicate, with her big blue eyes and face shape that was part heart, part angles. And she, Celia, the youngest, twenty now, which didn't seem young any more. They'd teased her for being lanky, an overgrown bird in the nest, thinning hair, brown eyes too big for her face. She'd grown into her looks, she supposed, her thin hips and body were in fashion now, her hair looked better since she'd had it cut shorter last month. From a small distance, she could even be attractive enough, brown skin, round cheeks and her heavy-lidded eyes.

If she knew what to do with make-up, she might be able to make herself look pretty, but she had no idea. She wondered how other girls just seemed to know what to do with the stuff, bright red mouths, pale pink cheeks. That was for girls like Louisa, not her.

When the war broke out, they'd been rich, even powerful, perhaps. The de Witt family. London painted with ‘de Witt, de Witt, keeps you fit' adverts for their canned meat. Celia had turned fifteen in 1914, a child still, expecting nothing, but sure that it would all be happy riches to come.

Then the war broke out – and everybody began to leave Stoneythorpe. Michael was first, running away to war almost as soon as it had been announced. Tom, her best friend, went with him. Sir Hugh broke off his engagement with Emmeline and she eloped to London with Mr Janus, Celia's tutor at the time.

Rudolf, with his German name and background, was interned in the Isle of Wight along with hundreds of other men. And so there was only Verena and Celia left, her mother letting the house crumble around her, weeping her time away. Celia dreaming of Tom, her childhood companion for as long as she could remember.

And eventually Celia had left Verena, too, borrowing Emmeline's birth certificate and signing up for the war effort, driving ambulances full of terrified, half-dead men in Etaples. It was there
she heard that Michael had died.
Died bravely
, said the letters from his superiors. They'd come back in a sea of darkness.

She'd thought of Tom, clung to the idea of him. And when they were both back at Stoneythorpe she'd told him she loved him. It pained her to remember it. He said he'd never love her, never want to – he had just spent time with her because he had to, as a servant. He told her to find a new world, new people. Everything went grey.

In 1917, walking though Leicester Square, Celia had met Michael's university friend, Jonathan, whom she hadn't seen since before the war. They'd gone out together, eaten and danced. She'd had too much to drink, offered herself to him, thinking that might dull the pain of war and rejection. But he'd said no, said she wasn't like other girls, talked instead of marriage.

And it was that night, outside in the snow, when Jonathan had told her the truth about Michael's death. Her brother hadn't died in battle, he'd been shot by his own men for failing to go over the top.

She remembered falling, feeling nothing but falling, holding on to one thought: that what really happened to Michael must be her secret and her family could never know. She clutched it close to her now, her heart sick with the truth.

‘I'll have to stand to see anything,' said Emmeline, crossly, still fretting over their position. ‘Surely the authorities could have arranged the seats better.'

Celia was drawn back to the present.

Looking at Emmeline now, Celia could hardly believe that she was once going to be Lady Bradshaw, the wife of the local aristocrat, presiding over hunt balls and fetes.

Now she and Mr Janus lived in a tiny flat in Bloomsbury, Mr Janus always plotting revolution, the pulling down of the upper classes, Emmeline nodding along, the supportive wife. He was away for a few days – an important meeting, he said. He'd never have come anyway. ‘It's mass performance to keep you obedient,' he said.

‘It looks much like it did for the Diamond Jubilee,' said Rudolf.
‘I could barely see a thing then either. And the hotels cost a fortune too.' He'd almost perfected his English accent now. As Verena said, it was important.

They'd booked places in the Savoy, quite in advance, but when they arrived, the manager had told them it would be twice the original price. Even though they were two less than they'd said. Louisa was supposed to be sharing with Celia but she'd come down with a terrible headache yesterday afternoon and had decided to stay behind at Stoneythorpe. Then Arthur had received a letter about an urgent business matter that he had to go to Winchester for. Still, the manager said, the price was the same and it didn't matter if the party was smaller. These were exceptional circumstances.

The restaurant was crammed so tightly you could barely walk between tables and it was so short staffed that Emmeline had stood up and declared, ‘I shall serve myself!' Even walking to the Mall this morning had taken them almost an hour, the crowds were so thick. People were in holiday mood, men in uniform, arm in arm with girls. Surely, Celia wanted to say to them, surely you're just pretending to smile. Yes, we won the war. But look at us.

She gazed at the men, marching in red jackets, black trousers, their swords sparkling, as neat and rigid as toys, glossy horses to either side, the white wedding cake of the Palace at the end, like a pot of gold on the rainbow. Thousands and thousands of people cheering them just for walking down the street. ‘Look at how they've just got the healthy ones out,' she said. ‘You'd think they hadn't even fought.' The first lot of plans had been for four days of celebrations. But who could have faced that?

‘Stop it, Celia. Don't talk so loudly,' said Emmeline, pinching her. She was so large that you thought she might have the baby now, but it most likely wouldn't be for another six weeks, the doctors said. Emmeline said she was so full of energy she felt like a schoolgirl, so they shouldn't fret. She said she didn't even need her husband; Mr Janus had gone off to one of his secretive meetings with the Workers. Probably best he wasn't here, anyway, Celia thought. He'd never be able to contain his feelings. He'd be shouting about the ruling classes, claiming that the soldiers
parading down the street were traitors to the people. She almost found herself agreeing with him.

‘These are soldiers used for show,' she said.

‘Ssshh,' said Emmeline again. ‘People can hear you.'

‘But it's true.' Where were they, the men that she had taken in her ambulance? They had been bleeding, missing limbs with lungs full of gas, jaws broken, eyes burned beyond repair, broken faces, hands shot to pieces. One she remembered, screaming all the way, had no face, none at all, just a mass of red. These men, marching in formation, looked like pictures in a magazine, not even a limp or a withered-looking hand, smart, upright, rosy-cheeked. She wondered, bitterly, if people wanted the other type to hide away. The government maybe did, because they were a reminder – horrible, wounded, sickly – of how they couldn't protect their people.

But those broken men were everywhere: sitting on their heels outside pubs, rocking back and forth with their hands over their ears, hearing the bombs still; leaning on wooden legs as they put their caps out for money on corners; in the long queues outside shops and office doors that she supposed were in response to advertisements for positions vacant, none of them with a hope, because they had half-burned faces, or a missing ear, hair singed off or an eye that never closed. Or the most hopeless of all, the ones who wore those white porcelain masks, painted with bright blue eyes, almost obscenely red lips. ‘Thank you, sir,' she imagined the proprietors saying. ‘We will let you know.' Or the more truthful ones who would say, ‘I'm sorry, sir. You'd put the customers off with a face like that.'

‘We're not celebrating the past, Celia,' said Rudolf, talking over Emmeline. ‘It's the future. It has been the War to End All Wars. We will never have war again. Always peace.'

She gazed at the next line of men, marching smartly in unison. What about those thousands who were still stuck out there? France – and those ones in the desert. When were they coming back? Another line of men came past. She'd forgotten to keep up with the list on her programme and now she had no idea
which regiment was passing. How much time they must have spent rehearsing such a performance. How much
money
.

If Tom were beside her, she could tell him this. But he didn't want to see her.

Tom had only sent two letters since he'd left the hospital. He said he'd met up with his captain in the army, who'd found him a job in his business. But she hadn't heard any more from him, and he hadn't left an address. She knew that she'd been silly in thinking that she might see him when they came to London – this city of millions, swelled by even more who'd come to watch the parades. Still, she'd looked out for him, strained to see through groups of men in case he might be there.

‘Celia!' said Emmeline. ‘You're gazing into space. What are you
doing
?'

‘I was thinking.'

‘We should try and join in,' said Emmeline, standing up, shifting uncomfortably as she did so. ‘Everyone's singing.' She waved her flag, bought for nearly a shilling. ‘Come on, Celia. Put in some effort. Aren't you supposed to be the war heroine?'

‘No, I'm not!' But she gave in, joined arms with her sister, sang along as she waved her flag. God Save the King.
Victorious
. She thought of Stoneythorpe, ramshackle, fallen-down, the garden overgrown with ivy, Verena's Versailles canals stagnant. So ruined and worn down that the work needed to bring it back to some sort of order was unimaginable, entirely so. And yet, how lucky they were to have a home and so much space. They should, she knew, really divide it up and let other people live there, change the whole thing entirely, so it wasn't Stoneythorpe at all.

At the end, after hundreds and hundreds of men had marched past them, thousands of people had cheered and waved their flags and the makeshift Cenotaph had been endlessly saluted, they queued in their lines under the boiling sun to leave their seats and were immediately jostled by the huge crowd. There were men, women, children on shoulders, and sellers bearing trays of everything: fried fish, cakes, flags, a whole set of plaster models of Field Marshal Haig, standing to attention on a lining of newsprint.

Rudolf looked around vainly. There was no one who might help them, no porters or servants for hire. And by the time they got on to the road for cabs, they'd be nearly at the Savoy.

‘If we get separated, let's meet back at our room,' said Rudolf. ‘Celia, look after your sister. Take her back to the hotel and keep close to her. Dear Emmeline is the priority.'

Emmeline sighed. ‘There's no need. I'm fine. I told you.'

Celia nodded, took tight hold of her sister's arm. ‘Come along, sister. Let's go quickly.'

She put her elbows up and started pushing through the crowds, past the children thrusting out hands for sweets, the men who'd already been drinking, women laughing arm in arm. ‘My sister is with child,' she shouted loudly. ‘Let her through!'

‘I don't know why we even came here,' said Emmeline, as she collapsed into a chair in the Savoy reception, dropping her flag. ‘We must be mad.' It wasn't even calm in the hotel's black and white tiled interior, dozens of men in uniform and women in hats going back and forth, laughing, talking, shouting to someone or other. They only had a chair because one man had seen Emmeline approach and jumped up.

‘We all told you not to come, sister,' said Celia. ‘You remember.'

Emmeline put her head in her hands. ‘I'm exhausted. I can't get up. I literally can't get up.' Pins fell from her hair, clattered to the floor.

‘We'll have to at some point. Papa said we should meet him at their room.'

‘I can't possibly go up the
stairs
' Two women dressed in evening gowns glided past. Had the parties started already?

‘Well, why don't we go through to the tea room and get some tea?'

‘All I want is tea. All I can think of is tea. But I can't move.'

‘You'll have to.'

Her head was still in her hands. ‘Sit by me. Please.'