“Would you believe me if I told you how much I envy you right now?” he asked. “Do you know Tennyson’s memorial poem to his friend Hallam? Sometimes the most hackneyed lines in poetry make the most sense. Everyone understands, I think, that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have had that experience. But there is another line that affects me more. Can I tell it to you?”
May nodded. Julian’s hand remained resting on hers.
“Well, it’s also from In Memoriam and is just this: ‘An infant crying for the light.’ My father died when I was three and although my mother is still alive she does not know how to love me. And so I have never known the light of parental love such as you have experienced. And,” he said simply “that is why I envy you.”
After May had dropped Julian off at Birmingham station to catch the train to Oxford he wondered if he had said too much. One of the two subjects that had not been discussed between them was one on which they were both sworn to secrecy. But if a disturbing love affair involving the head of state was taboo, then another matter, equally unspoken of, was forming between them. Even though he had removed his hand from hers soon after mentioning Tennyson and the nature of parental love, he had immediately wanted to put it back.
At the end of April Julian returned to Magdalen College for his final examination term and shortly afterwards, when the purple wisteria was trailing down the railings of Hamilton Terrace, May drove Sir Philip up to Oxford. After meeting with the master of Balliol, who was an old friend from undergraduate days and now also the vice-chancellor of the university, Sir Philip was staying on at his old college for the night. May was about to make the long drive home but after a moment’s thought she changed her mind. Somewhere within these ancient quadrangles and libraries, she knew she might find Julian.
She began her search at the café in the covered market where, according to Julian, they served the best homemade ginger beer known to man. For forty years George’s had sat undisturbed among the hallways of the market, the smell of exotic coffee lingering in the air above the fruit stalls, the fish market and the first-class butcher, an entire village of enclosed shops in the heart of the city. May took a corner table near the door, which was pinned all over with notices advertising bicycle repairs, Mandarin lessons, spare rooms to let and all manner of activities including postings for amateur theatricals, film clubs, wine society tastings, a talk at Merton College by the Irish poet Louis MacNeice to the university literary society and the latest get-together of the Oxford hamster club.
One flyer in particular caught her eye. There was to be an open-to-all meeting of Oswald Mosley’s New Party at three that very afternoon at the Carfax Meeting Rooms, just at the junction of the city’s crossroads.
“Mosley here in Oxford in person!” the poster announced.
May looked at her watch. The meeting was to begin in half an hour. Asking directions from the waitress she made her way through the narrow streets, dodging cyclists in gowns and women with shopping until ten minutes later she reached the hall. Although the large room was almost full she found an empty metal-framed chair three rows from the front and sat down. Men were standing around the perimeter of the hall like sentinels, their arms folded across tightly fitting fencing shirts, their trousers tucked into the top of long boots and held up by belts with shiny buckles imprinted with an encircled jagged line. Despite the uniform, the men did not look particularly menacing and May could not help thinking that there was something rather attractive about their severe dress code. The woman beside May caught her admiring look.
“You wouldn’t think much of them if you was married to a Cowley man,” she said with a sniff of disapproval. “Can’t get work for love or money, my Clive can’t. We want to know what Mosley plans to do about the unemployment at the Morris works. It’s all right for some, isn’t it?”
May started at her accusing look, as the woman took in the smart chauffeur’s uniform, relieved that she had parked the Rolls far out of sight of the hall. On the other side of the aisle just ahead of her, she spotted