Abdication A Novel - By Juliet Nicolson Page 0,117

the most unsuitable person for a girlfriend. And up until the moment they had plunged together into the river at Cuckmere Haven and had floated out to sea he had been determined to live a less anarchic, more exacting, and impressively responsible existence. But in the presence of the slender body in the water beside him, and the dark hair swept back from that lovely face with her wide grey eyes looking at him from the swell of the waves, he was confronted with the clarity he had so long sought. As he had walked up the beach with her towards the hut all his apprehension about what was about to happen had magically disappeared. If there was a skill involved in the act of love, he had been eager that they discover it for the first time together. And during that first afternoon, by the sea, in the small hut at Cuckmere, Julian had barely been aware of time or place, certain only of one thing: that life was, in that moment, perfect.

And yet, away from the hut, and from May’s embrace, the reality of day-to-day life nudged its way into his conscience. Reverberating memories of the violence at Cable Street reinforced his conviction that he was living in a country at odds with itself, riddled with selfishness, hypocrisy, prejudice, double standards and secrets. Last week he had received another card from Peter Grimshaw, the professor he and May had met in Wigan, urging Julian to join him and his friend Eric in fighting the cause in Spain. Julian was tempted to go. And yet. And there he went again! Dithering, procrastinating. For one thing his law term began in a matter of weeks, he argued with himself, and for another he found himself increasingly loathe to travel to a country, fanciful as it sounded, in which he would not be breathing the same air as May.

The strengthening wind was beginning to deter Hyde Park’s lunchtime visitors from delaying any longer, and newspapers were folded with the finality that preceded a return to the office. Julian adjusted his striped scarf, pulling it up high around his neck and tucking the ends tightly beneath the collar of his coat. The large woman and her gentleman companion continued to sit absorbed in animated conversation on the bench a little way along the path. The small dog was lying obediently at their feet. Julian’s thoughts turned to his mother. She was unwell. The doctors had initially told him it might be tuberculosis but until they could be certain they had advised Julian not to say anything to worry her. He had spent a difficult evening in her flat a week earlier when Mrs. Richardson had taken advantage of his presence to observe what a selfish young man he had become.

“Instead of looking after your old mother when she needs you, you tell me you are still thinking of taking off for Spain. You don’t even know this boy … Paul did you say his name was? And what about that other one? Eric something? Flair? Blurr? What sort of families do they both come from? Not ones I have ever heard of, I’m sure.”

As a consequence of that dinner and a sign of tentative guilt, Julian had consulted an expensive chest specialist from Guy’s Hospital, whose son had been his contemporary at Magdalen. Julian had always been careful with his money and was glad he had saved a sufficient sum from his benefactor’s allowance to pay for this medical advice.

“I understand your mother is widowed,” the specialist had said sympathetically to Julian on the telephone after examining Mrs. Richardson in his Harley Street rooms, an encounter for which she had worn her best hat and diamond pin.

“I am told on excellent authority that it is very like one in the possession of the Duchess of York,” she told Julian afterwards, while appearing vague about the diagnosis of her illness.

“We only have our parents for such a short precious time, don’t we?” the specialist had said to Julian. “But do we make the most of it while they are here? That is what I ask myself sometimes and that is exactly what I would advise you to do, Mr. Richardson. Your mother is not at all well, I am afraid. She has cancer of the lung, which I assess to be inoperable.”

Julian remained ambivalent about this news. He was not certain if it was his duty to care for a woman he did