Dominion

Jackson smiled sadly. ‘The Norway campaign finished Chamberlain. Some say if Churchill had got the premiership at that time, we’d have carried on the war after France fell. I wonder what would have happened then?’

They were walking briskly now; despite his size Jackson did not seem to be out of breath. David said, ‘Norway was a mess. I’d seen men die, the Germans seemed – invincible. After France fell I thought we had to make peace, I thought the Treaty was the only alternative to conquest.’

‘And Hitler promised to leave the Empire alone; many thought that generous. But Churchill said the Treaty would still lead to German dominion and he was right.’ He smiled at David then, a pleasant social smile although his eyes remained sharp. David knew that in a very English way he was being probed, tested. There was something about Jackson that made him guess this man was a civil servant like him, but very senior. He wondered where he was leading. Jackson smiled encouragingly. David took a breath and then dived right in, just as he had from the diving board as a boy.

‘My wife’s a pacifist,’ he said. ‘I used to agree with her. She still maintains that at least we stopped the war. Though she knows Britain’s supporting what’s going on in Russia. Endless bloody murder.’

Jackson stopped and looked out over Highgate Ponds. In the same quiet voice he said, ‘The Germans can never win in Russia. They’ve been fighting for eleven years to realize their goal: a state of German settlement stretching from Archangel to Astrakhan, some capitalist semi-colonial Russian state beyond that in the Urals and Siberia. But they’ve never managed it. Every summer they edge a bit further east, they breach parts of the Volga line, every winter the Russians push them back with these new Kalashnikov rifles they’re making beyond the Urals – millions of them, light and effective. And behind the lines, the partisans hold half the countryside. In some places the Germans just control the towns and the railway lines. Do you know what happened after they captured Leningrad ten years ago?’

‘No-one knows that, do they? All we hear is that the Germans keep slowly advancing.’

‘Well, they’re not. As for Leningrad, the Germans didn’t go in, they just surrounded the city and left the population to starve. Over three million people. There’s been complete radio silence from Leningrad since 1942. Nothing, not a cheep. When they took Moscow they turned the population out, put them in camps, and left them to starve. Same with the European Jews. They’re all supposed to have gone to labour camps, somewhere in the East. We’ve seen the newsreels, nice wooden huts with flowers in the window and lawns outside. But no English Jew has ever heard a word from friends or relatives who went there: not a letter, not a postcard. Nothing.’

David stared at Jackson. Does he know about me? he thought. But nobody knew his secret, apart from his father. It was just that with the new laws people were talking about the Jews more. He said, ‘There were what, six million people, seven, sent to the labour camps?’

Jackson nodded gravely. ‘Yes. There’s only ours and some of the French Jews left now. It’s been a matter of national pride and independence not to let them go, despite German pressure. But Mosley wants them out and he counts more every month.’ He sighed. ‘Where are we going, do you think, Fitzgerald?’

‘I think we’re going to hell in a handcart.’

A young couple walked by, the woman wearing white-framed sunglasses, a pink frock patterned with flowers. Between them they held the hands of a little girl, swinging her up in the air; she shrieked with delight. A collie dog ran round them, wagging its tail. Jackson smiled and the woman smiled back. The little family walked on, towards the water. When they were out of earshot Geoff said, ‘It’s getting worse in India, too. Has been ever since Gandhi died in prison in ’47. It doesn’t matter how many leaders they lock up along with Nehru. It just goes on: the rent strikes, the boycott of British goods, strikes in the industries exporting to Britain. These mutinies of Indian regiments against their officers – that really could bring the whole thing tumbling down. And the irony is that the Berlin Treaty limited our trade with the continent – look at the duties we have to pay on imports and exports, just so Hitler can use Europe as a captive market for his own industries. But that’s how Beaverbrook’s people wanted it.’ Geoff paused. ‘Imperial free trade and tariffs on trade with everyone else. His lifelong dream.’

‘Well, now he’s got it.’ Geoff gave one of his humourless barking laughs. ‘And we’ve had a Depression that’s gone on over twenty years.’

‘I’ve heard around the office,’ David spoke hesitantly, ‘that Enoch Powell wants to recruit a couple of new English divisions to send to India. But that would push our army above the Treaty limit.’

Jackson said, ‘Did you know, Hitler once offered to lend us a couple of SS divisions to sort out India.’ How much does this man know? David thought. Who is he?

Jackson looked at him. ‘You’re in the Dominions Office, Geoff tells me.’

‘Yes.’ This is going too fast. He’d already said too much to Geoff.

‘Principal in the Political Division, main job servicing the minister’s weekly meetings with the Dominion High Commissioners.’ Jackson’s tone had changed again, become brisk, businesslike.

‘Yes.’ The weekly meetings between the minister and the High Commissioners for the Dominions – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and, since last year, Rhodesia – were organized and minuted by David’s superior, with David doing much of the legwork.

‘Present at most of the meetings?’

David didn’t answer. There was a little silence, then Jackson continued, his tone conversational again. ‘You’ve been overseas, I believe, to New Zealand?’

‘Yes. I was posted there from ’44 to ’46. My father has family in Auckland. He’s gone to live with them, in fact. He thought we were going to hell in a handcart, too.’

‘And your mother?’

‘She died when I was at school.’

‘You have Irish blood, from your name.’

‘My father’s from a line of Dublin solicitors. He brought my mother and me over when I was three, during the Independence War.’

Jackson smiled. ‘You have an Irish look, if you don’t mind me saying.’

‘A lot of people think that.’

‘Any loyalties to Ireland?’

David shook his head. ‘To De Valera’s republic? No. My father hated all that stern Catholic nationalism.’

‘Did you think of staying out in Kiwiland with your father?’

‘Yes. But we decided to come back. This is still our country.’ And there had been no anti-Jew laws then; repression was still mild.

Jackson looked down across London, spread out under the blue sky. ‘Britain’s become a dangerous place. If you step out of line, that is. But,’ he said quietly, ‘opposition’s growing.’

David looked at Geoff. His friend’s nose was reddening in the sun. He wondered how, with his fair skin, Geoff had coped in Africa all that time. ‘Yes,’ David agreed, ‘it is.’

‘Fast.’

David said, ‘A lot of people are being killed on both sides. Strikers. Soldiers. Policemen. It’s getting worse.’

‘Churchill said we had to “set Britain ablaze” after the last election was rigged.’

‘Is he still alive?’ David asked. ‘I know there used be to be illicit recordings circulating of him urging us to resist, but nobody’s heard of those for a while. He’s getting on for eighty now. His wife Clementine’s gone, they found her dead from pneumonia in that stately home in Lancashire last year. Life on the run, for old people like that?’ He shook his head. ‘His son Randolph’s a collaborator, been on TV supporting the government. And if Churchill’s dead, who’s in power in the Resistance now? The Communists?’

Jackson gave David a long, appraising look. ‘Churchill is alive,’ he said, quietly. ‘And the Resistance goes a great deal wider than the Communist Party.’ He gave a slow nod, then looked at his watch and said, suddenly, ‘Well, shall we walk back towards the station? My wife’s expecting me home. One of her family get-togethers.’ And David realized that wherever Jackson was thinking of leading him, he wasn’t going to go there just yet.

On the walk back to the station Jackson talked genially about cricket and rugger; he had been in the school XV at Eton. When they parted he shook David’s hand, bestowed a rubicund smile, and walked away. In a rare gesture, Geoff squeezed David’s arm. ‘He liked you,’ he said quietly.

‘What’s this about, Geoff? Why did you tell him so much about me?’

‘I thought you might be interested in joining us.’