The Past and Other Lies (17 page)

‘I’m certain you are right, Miss Flaxheed, and if every classroom in England can produce such a girl then there is hope for the New World.’

This seemed a little excessive, but Bertha smiled brightly.

Mr Booth seemed to hesitate before reaching a decision.

‘You see, I am involved in a group that meets occasionally to discuss just such issues as these, Miss Flaxheed: the rights of the worker, the role of the trade unions, the place of socialism in our world, that sort of thing.’ Bertha nodded wisely. ‘Indeed, this letter I was intending to post was concerned with a rally we are holding this Sunday coming. It—I—the rally is open to all, and we welcome our sisters in the fight. Should you care to come, I would be honoured.’ He swallowed. ‘It will be at Hyde Park at three o’clock. You ought to come, Miss Flaxheed—it is every woman’s duty.’

Bertha swayed and the pavement gradually melted away and so too did the tram and the market-day shoppers into the September sunshine far away so that all she could see was his vivid green eyes.

‘Yes, Mr Booth, I should like to very much.’

The tram trundled along Bayswater Road and elegant young courting couples swam before Bertha’s eyes. The north side of Hyde Park was on her right, surrounded by black-painted railings over which she could see the bandstand decked with red, white and blue pennants and a brass band in scarlet tunics tuning their instruments. The waters of the Serpentine glittered in the distance.

The tram swung around the corner into Park Lane. One side of the road was lined with the magnificent mansions of London’s wealthy and a number of the newly built American hotels. On the other side of Park Lane, within the park itself, was a great crowd of people and their noise, and the shouts of the men on soapboxes, could be heard above the rattle of the tram. This was Speakers’ Corner.

They must get off! This was their stop.

Bertha found she couldn’t move.

‘Have a peanut,’ said Jemima and Bertha stared at her sister then down at the white paper bag in her sister’s outstretched hand.

‘A peanut?’ she said incredulously. Was this a moment for peanuts?

‘Left over from the Globe on Friday night. Thought we might need nourishment.’

‘But we must get off—this is our stop!’ gasped Bertha, lunging from her seat, which, as Jemima had yet to move from the aisle seat, proved ineffectual.

‘Do be careful!’ protested Jemima crossly, extricating herself from her sister’s lunge. They untangled themselves, tumbled down the spiral staircase as the tram screeched to a halt, and skipped down onto the kerb, Jemima forgetting her crossness of a moment ago and laughing at their near miss.

Bertha stood on the kerb trying to regain her balance and feeling quite sick.

‘We ’ave been
betrayed!
’

From inside the park a cheer went up, followed by a few jeers.

‘Aye, brothers,
betrayed
I say—betrayed and
duped
by the very men we voted for! The
very men
we trusted to deliver us from this
yoke
of poverty and
degradation
!’

The words, a hoarse shout delivered in a thick northern voice, were drowned out by another cheer and a flurry of shouts and whistles. From across the road Bertha and Jemima strained to see through the railings. Two red double-decker Generals had swung into Park Lane and disgorged their passengers, so that for a moment it was impossible to move at all. When finally they were able to cross the road and to hurry arm in arm, and with growing excitement, into the park, they were confronted by a throng of people that stretched from Park Lane all the way to the Serpentine.

Groups of young men, some in cloth caps and shirt sleeves, others in brown Sunday-best suits and bowler hats, stood around heckling the speakers and bantering with each other. Courting couples strolled from one speaker to another, amused as much by each other as by the words they were hearing. Children dodged between legs, chasing each other and running from their parents.

Of the speakers themselves, there were preachers of a dozen different hues, from Baptist to Methodist to Jew to a single Hindu in a white turban skilfully dodging the rotten fruit that routinely came his way.

‘Mr Ramsay MacDonald! Ha! I say you are no friend to the working man, Mr MacDonald! What have you done, in your eight months in your fancy new office at Downing Street? What have you done for the likes of us?’

The speaker was a lean and heavily moustachioed young man in a striped shirt and braces, with a cloth cap on his head, who stood on a wooden box punching the air with his fist.

‘He’s done more than the likes of you ’ave, anyhow!’ shouted a bearded man in wire spectacles, and as Bertha and Jemima hurried off the shouts of a dozen speakers pursued them...

‘I’ve seen first hand, brothers, the conditions of our brothers in the northern collieries and I can tell you it’s a
scandal! Poverty
, brothers, poverty and
famine!
Wages have been cut by forty per cent!
Forty per cent!
’

‘This government cares
nowt
for the working man. You were better off with a
Tory
—at least then you knew who your enemy was!’

‘And I ask you
why?
Why is it, brothers, that this government, and all governments, hunt down the communists? Why it is that all across the country, laws are passed and free-speaking men—men like yourselves—are hunted down and imprisoned? I’ll tell you why: it’s because they are
afraid!
’

‘Beware! Beware my friend, for they are everywhere! The communist is in your place of work, he is in your street, he is your neighbour, he may be in your family—he is everywhere! Pervading and spreading his revolutionary filth, for make no mistake, my friend,
he will stop at nothing
.’

It was quite dizzying, all these different voices, made more so by the crowds who seemed in no mood to listen to anybody for more than two minutes, and regularly called back responses to the questions posed, often in sarcastic or rude tones.

‘Where is he, then, this young man of yours?’ gasped Jemima, as they dodged to avoid a scuffle that threatened to erupt near by. ‘He’d better not be one of these cloth-cap-and-braces sorts.’

Bertha looked all around, but the number of speakers was so great she felt quite confused. Mr Booth had said a rally and she had taken that to mean a great political assembly of people of a like mind, come together to share their thoughts and to rouse themselves to action, not this chaotic and inarticulate rabble.

(Would
he be in a cloth cap and braces? Surely not.)

‘This way!’ she said, dragging Jemima past a particularly large white banner. The banner belonged to the League of Women for a Return to Domestic Duties and was held by two stuffily dressed middle-aged ladies. Above them, a third lady, in a wide-brimmed hat and clutching a parasol, stood atop a small stepladder.

‘...
urge
you, my dear sisters,
not
to be tempted by the ways of the man’s world, for it is not for us! It is God’s bidding that we, the fairer sex, embrace the duties that He has deemed are ours. Do
not
be tempted by these changes in the laws that offer suffrage for all, for that way lies
disaster!
It will spell the end of home life, the end of marriage, the end of childbirth. It my dear sisters, the end of Femininity itself!’

‘Piffle!’ said Bertha, annoyed.

‘Miss Flaxheed! Miss Flaxheed, over here!’

Bertha saw him immediately, only a few feet away, waving to her though prevented by a particularly thick crush of people from reaching her.

‘Mr Booth! There he is!’ she said triumphantly, and she waved at him to seal the matter.

‘Ha!’ said Jemima enigmatically.

Bertha elbowed and pushed her way through the crowd, pulling Jemima after her, until they had reached a little group of younger men and one or two young women who were gathered around an elaborate speaker’s box. It was really more of a lectern, and over it was draped a large red and gold banner on which was embroidered a crest. Closer inspection revealed it to be two crossed arms in red and black with the words
Socialism Through Unity
woven around the top, and
People! Organisation! Rights!
along the bottom.

They weren’t communists, were they?

‘Stupor,’ said Jemima.

‘What?’ Bertha turned to her distractedly.

‘Socialism Through Unity. People! Organisation! Rights! STUPOR.’

‘Miss Flaxheed!’

He was not, thank God, in a cloth cap, and he was wearing a Sunday jacket over his shirt so Bertha couldn’t see if he was wearing braces or not. On his head was the smart little bowler and his auburn hair was smoothed back very neatly, the large moustache trimmed and very tidy, his eyes still that quite dazzling shade of green.

‘Mr Booth!’

‘Miss Flaxheed!’ He came forward, fighting his way through the throng, and Bertha despaired of them ever getting beyond this heralding of each other.

‘Oh, you must be Mr Booth. Charmed I’m sure,’ and Jemima swept ahead and held out her gloved right hand.

Immediately Mr Booth, who had been about to offer his hand to Bertha, changed direction mid-stride and, registering her sister, withdrew his hand to tip his hat to her instead.

‘Oh. My sister, Mr Booth, Miss Jemima Flaxheed,’ explained Bertha, feeling uncomfortably that she had been outmanoeuvred.

‘A pleasure, Miss Flaxheed, indeed a great pleasure.’ His eyes shone as though he were thrilled that they were, both of them, there. Then he turned and hesitantly reached for Bertha’s hand, and as Bertha had assumed she had been forgotten where hand-shaking was concerned, there was a moment of confusion as his hand hovered unanswered in the air and Bertha, realising her mistake, dived at it, missed and stumbled into him.

‘Sorry, I’m so sorry,’ said Mr Booth and Bertha smiled bravely and was mortified. ‘You had a safe journey, I hope?’ he asked, which, considering they had come on the tram from Acton and not on the
Mauretania
from New York seemed excessive.

‘At least the tram was running,’ complained Jemima. ‘They seem to be on strike more or less all the time at present.’

‘And that is the very reason we are here, Miss Flaxheed!’ exclaimed Mr Booth, turning to her eagerly. ‘We—’ and he spread his arm in a sweeping motion to take in the crowd surrounding the lectern, ‘are the embodiment of all that is wrong with England today!’ He paused. ‘By which I mean, we are here to try to put right all that is wrong with England today.’

‘Rather a tall order, wouldn’t you say?’ remarked Jemima.

Bertha rounded on her impatiently. ‘A tall order is only tall until you scale it!’ she declared, trusting Mr Booth wouldn’t recognise the quote, which she had stolen from the Girl Guides handbook.

‘That’s it! That’s it exactly, Miss Flaxheed,’ replied Mr Booth. ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head. The Socialism Through Unity league endeavours to identify the many injustices in our society and bring them to the attention of those in the opposition parties, in the unions, in various political leagues and organisations...’

‘In other words, to get them to do your dirty work for you,’ finished Jemima, and Bertha felt her irritation reach such a level that she was quite breathless.

It was a very warm afternoon now, the trees around the edge of the park and down by the Serpentine offering little shade to the crowds at Speakers’ Corner, and Bertha could feel her dress sticking to her underarms. A pinkish tinge had appeared on Mr Booth’s forehead and cheeks as though his fair skin was already catching the sun. Jemima, in her slim cotton summer dress was the picture of cool disdain. She gazed past Mr Booth at the scowling, pale-faced man who had just stepped up to the lectern.

‘Mr Jamie Cannon,’ explained Mr Booth. ‘Our West London delegate and one of our founding members.’

Mr Cannon, who was wearing a dark suit that was a size too small for him, paused, fingering his collar, which was buttoned tightly at his throat. He suddenly gripped both lapels and his eyes—black, unblinking eyes—swept the assembled crowd.

‘Mr Cannon has just returned from a tour of the north,’ whispered Mr Booth.

‘Ah,’ said Bertha nodding, and Jemima, with a snort of derision, wandered off.

‘I find myself troubled,’ announced Mr Cannon in an oddly soft, almost conversational tone, and Bertha strained to hear, curious to find out what it was that troubled him. ‘Yes, troubled, my friends. And I shall tell you why. Our King has chosen to open an eighth wonder of the modern world: the
Empire
Exhibition, no less, at
Wembley
, not four months ago. Yes, my friends, a great
exhibition
to rival The
Great
Exhibition of eighteen hundred and fifty-one, an exhibition to show the world the
might
of England’s empire. Oh yes, a wondrous thing indeed. And in Paris! Paris,
France.
..’ He paused to let this sink in. ‘In Paris, France, if you please, we have the Olympic Games. The
Olympic
Games, mind, not the people’s games. The Olympic Games.’ A murmur of unrest rippled through the onlookers. ‘Where, if you please, the winners of athletics races win medals,
gold
medals, for their efforts!’