Robert was now the proprietor of a restaurant much favoured by the homosexuals about whom Ruby had been complaining. Somehow he had known that Cambridge in the 1930s was congenial to such men, just as Berlin had been in the 1920s. His new place had the same name as the old, Bistro Robert. ‘Business is good,’ he answered. A shadow crossed his face, a brief but intense look of real fear. ‘This time, I hope I can keep what I’ve built up.’
‘We’re doing our best to fight off the Fascists, and meetings such as this are the way to do it,’ Lloyd said. ‘Your talk will be a big help – it will open people’s eyes.’ Robert was going to speak about his personal experience of life under Fascism. ‘A lot of them say it couldn’t happen here, but they’re wrong.’
Robert nodded grim agreement. ‘Fascism is a lie, but an alluring one.’
Lloyd’s visit to Berlin three years ago was vivid in his mind. ‘I often wonder what happened to the old Bistro Robert,’ he said.
‘I had a letter from a friend,’ Robert said in a voice full of sadness. ‘None of the old crowd go there any more. The Macke brothers auctioned off the wine cellar. Now the clientele is mostly middle-ranking cops and bureaucrats.’ He looked even more pained as he added: ‘They no longer use tablecloths.’ He changed the subject abruptly. ‘Do you want to go to the Trinity Ball?’
Most of the colleges held summer dances to celebrate the end of exams. The balls, plus associated parties and picnics, constituted May Week, which illogically took place in June. The Trinity Ball was famously lavish. ‘I’d love to go, but I can’t afford it,’ Lloyd said. ‘Tickets are two guineas, aren’t they?’
‘I’ve been given one. But you can have it. Several hundred drunk students dancing to a jazz band is actually my idea of hell.’
Lloyd was tempted. ‘But I haven’t got a tailcoat.’ College balls required white-tie-and-tails.
‘Borrow mine. It’ll be too big at the waist, but we’re the same height.’
‘Then I will. Thank you!’
Ruby reappeared. ‘Your mother is wonderful,’ she said to Lloyd. ‘I never knew she used to be a maid!’
Robert said: ‘I have known Ethel for more than twenty years. She is truly extraordinary.’
‘I can see why you haven’t met Miss Right,’ Ruby said to Lloyd. ‘You’re looking for someone like her, and there aren’t many.’
‘You’re right about the last part, anyway,’ Lloyd said. ‘There’s no one like her.’
Ruby winced, as if in pain.
Lloyd said: ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Toothache.’
‘You must go to the dentist.’
She looked at him as if he had said something stupid, and he realized that on a housemaid’s wage she could not afford to pay a dentist. He felt foolish.
He went to the door and peeped through to the main hall. Like many nonconformist churches, this was a plain, rectangular room with walls painted white. It was a warm day, and the clear-glass windows were open. The rows of chairs were full and the audience was waiting expectantly.
When Ethel reappeared, Lloyd said: ‘If it’s all right with everyone, I’ll open the meeting. Then Robert will tell his personal story, and my mother will draw out the political lessons.’
They all agreed.
‘Ruby, will you keep an eye on the Fascists? Let me know if anything happens.’
Ethel frowned. ‘Is that really necessary?’
‘We probably shouldn’t trust them to keep their promise.’
Ruby said: ‘They’re meeting a quarter of a mile up the road. I don’t mind running in and out.’
She left by the back door, and Lloyd led the others into the church. There was no stage, but a table and three chairs stood at the near end, with a lectern to one side. As Ethel and Robert took their seats, Lloyd went to the lectern. There was a brief round of subdued applause.
‘Fascism is on the march,’ Lloyd began. ‘And it is dangerously attractive. It gives false hope to the unemployed. It wears a spurious patriotism, as the Fascists themselves wear imitation military uniforms.’
The British government was keen to appease Fascist regimes, to Lloyd’s dismay. It was a coalition dominated by Conservatives, with a few Liberals and a sprinkling of renegade Labour ministers who had split with their party. Only a few days after it was re-elected last November, the Foreign Secretary had proposed to yield much of Abyssinia to the conquering Italians and their Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini.
Worse still, Germany was rearming and aggressive. Just a couple of months ago, Hitler had violated the Versailles Treaty by sending troops into the demilitarized Rhineland – and Lloyd had been horrified to see that no country had been willing to stop him.
Any hope he had that Fascism might be a temporary aberration had now vanished. Lloyd believed that democratic countries such as France and Britain must get ready to fight. But he did not say so in his speech today, for his mother and most of the Labour Party opposed a build-up in British armaments and hoped that the League of Nations would be able to deal with the dictators. They wanted at all costs to avoid repeating the dreadful slaughter of the Great War. Lloyd sympathized with that hope, but
