economist,’ said Bernie. ‘Yet it proposes what the Labour Party has always wanted! You know you’re winning, in politics, when your opponents steal your ideas.’
Ethel said: ‘The idea is that everyone of working age should pay a weekly insurance premium, then get benefits when they are sick, unemployed, retired or widowed.’
‘A simple proposal, but it will transform our country,’ Bernie said enthusiastically. ‘Cradle to grave, no one will ever be destitute again.’
Daisy said: ‘Has the government accepted it?’
‘No,’ said Ethel. ‘Clem Attlee pressed Churchill very hard, but Churchill won’t endorse the report. The Treasury thinks it will cost too much.’
Bernie said: ‘We’ll have to win an election before we can implement it.’
Ethel and Bernie’s daughter, Millie, dropped in. ‘I can’t stay long,’ she said. ‘Abie’s watching the children for half an hour.’ She had lost her job – women were not buying expensive gowns, now, even if they could afford them – but, fortunately, her husband’s leather business was flourishing, and they had two babies, Lennie and Pammie.
They drank cocoa and talked about the young man they all adored. They had little real news of Lloyd. Every six or eight months Ethel received a letter on the headed paper of the British embassy in Madrid, saying he was safe and well and doing his bit to defeat Fascism. He had been promoted to major. He had never written to Daisy, for fear Boy might see the letters, but now he could. Daisy gave Ethel the address of her new flat, and took down Lloyd’s address, which was a British Forces Post Office number.
They had no idea when he might come home on leave.
Daisy told them about her half-brother, Greg, and his son, Georgy. She knew that the Leckwiths of all people would not be censorious, and would be able to rejoice in such news.
She also told the story of Eva’s family in Berlin. Bernie was Jewish, and tears came to his eyes when he heard about Rudi’s broken hands. ‘They should have fought the bastard Fascists on the street, when they had the chance,’ he said. ‘That’s what we did.’
Millie said: ‘I’ve still got the scars on my back, where the police pushed us through Gardiner’s plate-glass window. I used to be ashamed of them – Abie never saw my back until we’d been married six months – but he says they make him proud of me.’
‘It wasn’t pretty, the fighting in Cable Street,’ said Bernie. ‘But we put a stop to their bloody nonsense.’ He took off his glasses and wiped his eyes with his handkerchief.
Ethel put her arm around his shoulders. ‘I told people to stay home that day,’ she said. ‘I was wrong, and you were right.’
He smiled ruefully. ‘Doesn’t happen often.’
‘But it was the Public Order Act, brought in after Cable Street, that finished the British Fascists,’ Ethel said. ‘Parliament banned the wearing of political uniforms in public. That finished them. If they couldn’t strut up and down in their black shirts they were nothing. The Conservatives did that – credit where credit’s due.’
Always a political family, the Leckwiths were planning the post-war reform of Britain by the Labour Party. Their leader, the quietly brilliant Clement Attlee, was now deputy prime minister under Churchill, and union hero Ernie Bevin was Minister of Labour. Their vision made Daisy feel excited about the future.
Millie left and Bernie went to bed. When they were alone Ethel said to Daisy: ‘Do you really want to marry my Lloyd?’
‘More than anything in the world. Do you think it will be all right?’
‘I do. Why not?’
‘Because we come from such different backgrounds. You’re all such good people. You live for public service.’
‘Except for our Millie. She’s like Bernie’s brother – she wants to make money.’
‘Even she has scars on her back from Cable Street.’
‘True.’
‘Lloyd is like you. Political work isn’t something extra he does, like a hobby – it’s the centre of his life. And I’m a selfish millionaire.’
‘I think there are two kinds of marriage,’ Ethel said thoughtfully. ‘One is a comfortable partnership, where two people share the same hopes and fears, raise children as a team, and give each other comfort and help.’ She was talking about herself and Bernie, Daisy realized. ‘The other is a wild passion, madness and joy and sex, possibly with someone completely unsuitable, maybe someone you don’t admire or don’t even really like.’ She was thinking about her affair with Fitz, Daisy felt sure. She held her breath: she knew Ethel was now telling her the raw truth. ‘I’ve been lucky, I’ve had both,’ Ethel said. ‘And here’s my advice to you. If you get the chance of the mad kind of love, grab it with both hands, and to hell with the consequences.’
‘Wow,’ said Daisy.
She left a few minutes later. She felt privileged that Ethel had given her a glimpse into her soul. But when she got back to her empty apartment she felt depressed. She made a cocktail and poured it away. She put the kettle on and took it off again. The radio went off the air. She lay between cold sheets and wished Lloyd was there.
She compared Lloyd’s family with her own. Both had troubled histories, but Ethel had forged a strong, supportive family out of unfavourable materials, which Daisy’s own mother had
