‘Foreign Secretary?’ Kennedy enquired, shuffling off the responsibility.
Halifax considered carefully. It was a complex question, one he had debated long and hard with his colleagues and his God. ‘I am no fan of Herr Hitler. He is a ferocious bully, a man with blood on his hands. And yet I see no reason why that blood should be British. On the other hand Bolshevism represents a threat to everything this country stands for.’ He began tapping the pocket of his dinner jacket with his prosthesis as if to check that his wallet hadn’t disappeared. ‘Look at the map, Ambassador. The most substantial obstacle standing in Stalin’s path is Germany. Without a strong Reich’ – the word emerged most wretchedly mangled – ‘there would be nothing to stop Stalin’s hordes sweeping through the continent until they stood at our own front door. Personally – and as an aristocrat I have to view such things personally – I take no pleasure in the prospect of being butchered simply because of what I was born. Begging your pardon, ma’am.’
Tiny shudders of sympathy ran through the Dowager Queen, causing the four strands of jewels in her necklace to sparkle. She had long been tormented by the fate of her cousin, the last Tsar, who had been murdered with his entire family in the cellar at Ekaterinburg, led down the steps, repeatedly shot, then finished off with bayonets. No, not a proper fate for a king. Her shuddering became more violent and she moved her hand to the folds of her throat.
Kennedy, meanwhile, was in excellent spirits. The seat of his trousers had been warmed thoroughly by the fire and the bourbon he was sipping was iced and excellent. It seemed an appropriate time for a little fun. ‘I agree with you, Foreign Secretary,’ Kennedy offered, picking up the thread of the conversation. ‘It’s a time when we all have to make choices. Tough choices.’ A malicious pause. ‘Pity no one seems to have told Mr Churchill that.’
The Queen reacted as though she had suddenly found a pin in the cushion of the chair. ‘That man!’ she gasped with an expression of pain.
Halifax began to clear his throat, loudly, diplomatically, trying to give the Queen the opportunity to withdraw, but she was in her own house and would have none of it. She was, after all, a woman who carried with her the reputation of being a notorious kleptomaniac, and hosts who invited her for dinner would instruct the servants to lock away the best silver in case she took a liking to a piece and stuffed it in her handbag. She was not a woman who had ever been unduly sensitive about other people’s feelings, and she had no intention of showing weakness now.
‘He crashes around like a bull who hasn’t been fed for a week,’ she persisted, treating herself to a huge sip of sherry. ‘Leaves wreckage everywhere he goes.’
‘Ma’am?’ Kennedy enquired, wanting more, bending low.
‘My apologies, Ambassador, but …’ For a moment it seemed she had shocked herself by her own indiscretion. Her face had gone pale beneath the powder, like snow-swept granite, and, taking Halifax’s hint, she looked for some means of escape. She peered blindly across the saloon. ‘Edward, who is that woman? The one dressed like a Parisian actress?’
‘Um, the lady by the staircase?’
‘The one whose necklace appears to be nudging her navel. They can’t be real, surely.’
‘The jewels, ma’am? Indeed they can. That is the wife of one of the King’s bankers.’
He offered the name and the Dowager Queen’s nostrils flared in distaste, as though someone had just thrown a horse-hair mattress on the fire. Not a guest who would have been invited in her day. This distraction wasn’t working. Anyway, she argued with herself, why should she be seeking distraction? She was old, and with age went all sorts of allowances to indulge her whims, to jump in puddles and rattle the railings and pinch the silver just as she wished. Her husband was dead, she was no longer on parade. Why should she hold back?
‘I had forgotten that you are so recently arrived in our country, Ambassador. But since you have expressed an interest in Mr Churchill, it would be rude of me not to advise you on the matter. You will soon get to know Mr Churchill’s record. An exceptional one, indeed.’ She paused for effect and for breath. ‘He has never been loyal to anyone other than himself. He changes parties and friendships whenever it suits him. None of our business, of course, but when he begins blundering into matters of the Crown, that is quite another thing. Oh, it pains me, Mr Kennedy, that my son Edward should have behaved so badly over the abdication. That was terrible enough for any family to bear. But Mr Churchill proved himself to be utterly outrageous. Talked of forming a King’s Party. Wanted Edward to stay on the throne and to turn the whole thing into a huge political row. Would have had That Woman as Queen!’
Her Royal Annoyance disappeared into her sherry, unable for the moment to continue, while Kennedy felt forced to stifle a smile in order to maintain the stern face of diplomacy. If only ‘That Woman’, Wallis Simpson, had been a sour-faced German dumpling, how much easier Edward’s path might have been …
The Queen’s head was up once more, her emotions on the flood. ‘Mr Winston Churchill’ – she was intent on putting him in his place – ‘Mr Winston Churchill has done more than any other commoner since Cromwell to bring our family to the brink of ruin. Why, he might as well be a Bolshevik!’
Halifax, anxious that the Queen Mother was diverting down avenues which might prove uncomfortable, picked up the explanation. ‘Winston has had many difficult times,’ he explained to Kennedy, ‘but the abdication row was the worst. He came back to the Commons after what might be termed, um … a considerable lunch, and would not go quietly. Insisted on rising to make a speech, to argue against the abdication. When the matter was already settled.’
The dowager muttered darkly. Kennedy thought he could make out the words ‘dog’ and ‘vomit’.
‘It was, um, an extraordinary scene. He was jeered from all sides, to the point where he could take it no longer. Forced to leave the Chamber. Flogged from his post. His reputation has never recovered. A sad end to a considerable career. Who knows what – um, in other circumstances – might have been?’
Kennedy had to work still harder to contain his amusement at Halifax’s soft twisting of the stiletto and the outpouring of tortured ‘r’s. His entertainment was interrupted by what seemed at first sight to be an ostrich, an apparition in feathers that began to bob slowly up and down. It proved to be one of the guests, the wife of a senior diplomat, who was curtseying – once, twice – trying to catch the Dowager Queen’s attention. The attempt failed miserably. The Queen stared unflinching with eyes that could pluck feathers at fifty paces. After all, this particular bird was one of that circle of society women who – like the banker’s wife – had taken her son, the once-innocent Edward, under their wings and into their beds, ensuring that the handsome young prince wanted for neither experience nor education. Trouble was, they had also left him with a taste for the exotic which, in Queen Mary’s view, had pushed him down the slippery sexual slope that had led to his ruin with That Woman. The Queen chose neither to forgive nor to forget, and the courtier moved on, distraught, flapping her freshly clipped wings.
Kennedy returned them to their conversation. ‘So you don’t think Mr Churchill has much of a political future?’
‘The best is past, and some time ago,’ Halifax muttered.
The royal whalebone rattled. ‘It is all theatre. He hasn’t a smudge of support.’
Kennedy loved this woman and it showed. Fiery, passionate, opinionated. Hell, if only they’d also given the Royal Family a brain, how different history might have been.
‘Ah, um, which brings me to another point, Ambassador,’ Halifax continued. ‘On which the Prime Minister and I would much appreciate your support.’
‘You want New York back?’
‘Not quite our architectural style any longer, I think. No, it’s Paramount, the um … picture