First there was an awesome flash, impossibly bright, the fiercest glare Greg had ever seen, stronger than the sun.
Then a weird dome of fire seemed to come out of the ground. With terrifying speed it grew monstrously high. It reached the level of the mountains and continued to rise, rapidly dwarfing the peaks.
Greg whispered: ‘Jesus . . .’
The dome morphed into a square. The light was still brighter than noonday, and the distant mountains were so vividly illuminated that Greg could see every fold and crevice and rock.
Then the shape changed again. A pillar appeared below, seeming to push miles into the sky, like the fist of God. The cloud of boiling fire above the pillar spread like an umbrella, until the whole thing looked like a mushroom seven miles tall. The colours in the cloud were hellish orange, green and purple.
Greg was hit by a wave of heat, as if the Almighty had opened a giant oven. At the same moment the bang of the explosion reached his ears like the crack of doom. But that was only the beginning. A noise like supernaturally loud thunder rolled over the desert, drowning all other sound.
The blazing cloud began to diminish but the thunder went on and on, impossibly sustained, until Greg wondered if this was the sound of the end of the world.
At last it faded away, and the mushroom cloud began to disperse.
Greg heard Frank Oppenheimer say: ‘It worked.’
Oppie said: ‘Yes, it worked.’
The two brothers shook hands.
And the world is still here, Greg thought.
But it has been forever changed.
Lloyd Williams and Daisy went to Hoxton Town Hall on the morning of 26 July to watch the votes being counted.
If Lloyd lost, Daisy was going to break off the engagement.
He fervently denied that she was a political liability, but she knew better. Lloyd’s political enemies made a point of calling her ‘Lady Aberowen’. Voters reacted to her American accent by looking indignant, as if she had no right to take part in British politics. Even Labour Party members treated her differently, asking if she would prefer coffee when they were all drinking tea.
As Lloyd had forecast, she was often able to overcome people’s initial hostility, by being natural and charming, and helping the other women wash up the tea cups. But was that enough? The election results would give the only definite answer.
She was not going to marry him if it meant his giving up his life’s work. He said he was willing to do it, but it was a hopeless foundation for marriage. Daisy shuddered with horror as she imagined him doing some other job, working at a bank or in the civil service, miserably unhappy and trying to pretend it was not her fault. It did not bear thinking about.
Unfortunately, everyone thought the Conservatives were going to win the election.
Some things had gone Labour’s way in the campaign. Churchill’s ‘Gestapo’ speech had backfired. Even Conservatives had been dismayed. Clement Attlee, broadcasting the following evening for Labour, had been coolly ironic. ‘When I listened to the Prime Minister’s speech last night, in which he gave such a travesty of the policy of the Labour Party, I realized at once what was his object. He wanted the voters to understand how great was the difference between Winston Churchill, the great leader in war of a united nation, and Mr Churchill, the party leader of the Conservatives. He feared lest those who had accepted his leadership in war might be tempted out of gratitude to follow him further. I thank him for having disillusioned them so thoroughly.’ Attlee’s magisterial disdain had made Churchill seem a rabble-rouser. People had had too much of blood-red passion, Daisy thought; they would surely prefer temperate common sense in peacetime.
A Gallup poll taken the day before voting showed Labour winning, but no one believed it. The idea that you could forecast the result by asking a small number of electors seemed a bit unlikely. The
All the other papers said the Conservatives would win.
Daisy had never before taken any interest in the mechanics of democracy, but her fate was in the balance now, and she watched, mesmerized, as the voting papers were taken out of the boxes, sorted, counted, bundled, and counted again. The man in charge was called the Returning Officer, as if he had been away for a while. He was, in fact, the Town Clerk. Observers from each of the parties monitored the proceedings to make sure there was no carelessness or dishonesty. The process was long, and Daisy felt tortured by suspense.
At half past ten, they heard the first result from elsewhere. Harold Macmillan, a protege of Churchill’s and a wartime Cabinet Minister, had lost Stockton-on-Tees to Labour. Fifteen minutes later there was news of a huge swing to Labour in Birmingham. No radios were allowed into the hall, so Daisy and Lloyd were relying on rumours filtering in from outside, and Daisy was not sure what to believe.
It was midday when the Returning Officer called the candidates and their agents into a corner of the room, to give them the result before making the announcement publicly. Daisy wanted to go with Lloyd but she was not permitted.
The man spoke quietly to all of them. As well as Lloyd and the sitting MP, there was a Conservative and a Communist. Daisy studied their faces, but could not guess who had won. They all went up on to the platform, and the room fell silent. Daisy felt nauseous.
