Past Caring (54 page)

“I know. I’m sorry—and grateful.”

“
De nada.
When I say do not mention it, I mean it. Here is what
else you asked.”

He pulled open a drawer and took out the revolver in its holster,
attached to a waist belt and shoulder strap. Their fraying leather
still had a whiff of Aldershot stores about them. They could easily
have been mine.

“Thanks, Carlos. I won’t forget this.”

“Nor will Senhor Sellick. Do you wish to see him? He has spoken of you—not kindly.”

“No. Just hold him as long as you can.”

“I told you Edouin—one month. You have until May 20th.”

“Then I must make haste.”

“Before you do, there is something else I think you should have.

It was found in Senhor Sellick’s room . . . among his possessions.” He
drew from his pocket a paper and I guessed at once what it was. “It
seems to me that this belongs to you. It is a record of your marriage.” I took it from him. “I did not know you were married.”

“A long time ago, Carlos.” I smiled. “I was a different man
then.” I thanked him again for his efforts, slipped the revolver and
harness into a bag and made to leave. He stopped me at the door.

“Edouin . . . I know you well. This must be something . . . very
special.”

“It is. You could say it’s . . . everything.”

“I thought it was so. For that reason , I do it for you. Good luck,
my friend . . . with everything.”

“Adeus, Carlos.”

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331

I arranged my departure as swiftly as I could, but it was the following Monday before I boarded the flying boat for England. It was St.

George’s Day, a fitting date for my first return home since the death
of my mother 21 years before. Yet this visit was unheralded and—

strictly speaking—unnecessary. I had given Ambrose no warning
of it and, much as I was inclined to go at once to Barrowteign to see
him, I knew I must first go to London and learn what I could there.

The delay before leaving Madeira had given me time to lay my
plans. My principal difficulty was that so many who might have
told me so much were dead. I had observed from afar the demise of
my former political colleagues, as recorded in
The Times
obituary
columns. Before leaving the quinta, I had surveyed an old photograph I had of Asquith’s Cabinet, as it had been upon formation in
1908. Of the twenty men pictured, only two still lived. I was one.

Winston Churchill was the other.

To many, it might have seemed that only one remained. For
Churchill was now Leader of the Opposition with every hope of becoming Prime Minister again at the next election , whereas I had
lapsed into an obscurity from which there was no returning: not, at
least, until now. For the part he might have played in silencing
Palfrey, the private detective, I held Churchill still suspect. We had
exchanged pleasantries and anecdotes during his visit to Madeira
in 1950, but that was before Sellick opened my eyes to part of the
truth. Now, others too would be made to look.

The flying boat reached Southampton in cold, wet weather: colder
and wetter than I remembered. Madeira had spoiled me in my
dotage, prepared me not at all for the chill, grey curtness with which
England seemed to receive me.

I took a train to London , booked a room in a hotel I knew near
Leicester Square (or thought I knew—it had, in fact, been rebuilt
since the Blitz) and took stock of England, 1951. I read the newspapers voraciously and sat in on a debate in Parliament, stifling a tiring cough which made me feel as dull and grey as the weather. The
government was Labour but the debate was about an arcane dispute
with Persia which would have done justice to Palmerston.
Plus ça change.
Churchill was not in the chamber.

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He was my only lead. So I wrote him a letter asking if we could
meet. His reply came at the end of the week, inviting me to visit him
at Chartwell, his country house in Kent, on Sunday. The pallid
English version of sunshine appeared, my cough abated and I recovered my momentum.

A car was waiting for me at Westerham railway station and
Churchill received me alone, in his library.

He held out his hand. “Edwin , I know I broke a dinner engagement with you when I left Madeira last year, but I didn’t think
you’d follow me all the way here.”

“Neither did I, Winston. How are you?”

“Looking forward to victory. This government is finished.

Disraeli would have called them exhausted volcanoes. Now that
Bevan’s resigned . . .”

“Please, Winston. I’d love to sit here and gossip with you, but
my business is pressing. I’ve lost too much time already.”

He waved me into a leather armchair, beneath loaded book-shelves that reached to the ceiling. “What’s this, Edwin? You’re
out of it now. What can be so pressing? I thought we’d chat here
for a while, then join Clemmie for tea. And you’ve never been to
Chartwell before, have you? I could show you round. I bought it
with my advance for
The World Crisis,
you know. The pen is
mightier than the sword.”

“Very true.” I thought of the stroke of a pen on a South African
marriage certificate. “You could say that penmanship has brought
me here.”

He lit a cigar and I declined the offer of one. “You’d better explain.”

“Do you realize we’re the only original members of Asquith’s
first Cabinet left alive?”

“I suppose we must be. Lots to say then . . .”

“Yes, Winston , lots. But it won’t necessarily be agreeable.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t quite know what part you played in it all. I
mean my resignation.”

P A S T C A R I N G

333

“Edwin , that was forty years ago. Harsh things were said.

What can possibly be the point . . .”

“The point is, I know now. I know what you did for me. I never
did before, you see. My incredulity was not for effect. It was genuine. But now I know why Asquith refused to have me in his
Cabinet.”

“It’s more than I do.”

“Then I’ll tell you. I think it was represented to him that I was
about to commit bigamy with a prominent Suffragette.”

“Edwin , this is extraordinary. But what can I say? I simply did
not—and do not—know the circumstances of your resignation.”

“Perhaps not, but Lloyd George did, and you were his
staunchest ally in Cabinet at that time.”

His Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition did not care to be
reminded of redundant allegiances. “Edwin , this is becoming tiresome.”

“Bear with me, Winston. Remember how you forgot to contact
a private detective called Palfrey for me during the Great War?”

“Frankly, no.”

“You don’t remember a note of acrimony creeping into a lunch
we had at Gaspard’s Restaurant in January 1919?”

“No, Edwin , I don’t.”

“Or why Lloyd George offered me the consulate in Madeira so
soon afterwards?”

“Generosity, I presume.”

“Or bribery?”

“I hardly think so.”

“Did you perhaps tell him what I’d said about Sir Gerald
Couchman? Might that have led him to want me out of the
country?”

“I might have mentioned your . . . predicament. Isn’t that what
friends are for?”

“You tell me what friends are for, Winston. For hatching conspiracies? Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you
after many days. I think I have the means to prove Sir Gerald
Couchman , good friend to the party, to be a liar, a fraud and—a
criminal. I suspect he gave Lloyd George the means to remove me
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from the government, which he needed to do because I had learned
of his plot to form a coalition with Balfour behind Asquith’s back. I
do not accuse you of complicity in my removal . . .”

“That would be as well.”

“But I do suggest you kept Lloyd George informed as to my
state of mind and suggested I be offered congenial employment far
from home rather than be allowed to harass Couchman into any
form of confession.”

“I think you’ve said enough.”

“You’re probably right. But bear this in mind. If I do expose
Couchman for what he is, the full story will do nothing for your
reputation. With an election in the wind, it could prove acutely embarrassing.”

That last was a stupid thing to have said. It was a poor imitation
of Sellick and just as contemptible. But I had grown angry and spoken out of frustration at myriad injustices. Churchill looked hurt
and angry. There was nothing for it but to leave at once.

But, as I jumped up from my chair, my right leg gave way—

since the Somme it had never been able to bear sudden strain—and
I stumbled to the floor.

The next moment, Churchill was panting from the effort of assisting me back into the chair and we were both laughing at our
frailties.

“For goodness’ sake, Edwin , calm down.”

“I’m sorry, Winston. I didn’t want to offend you—or muff my
exit.”

“Then recover yourself and have some tea.”

“I don’t think I can stay.”

“As you wish. But it was you who said that we were the last ones
left of Asquith’s Cabinet. We shouldn’t fall out.”

“I suppose not. I was really only taking out on you what I can’t
say to—or of—the dead.”

“Well, no matter. I have a broad back. Since we’ve both reached
an age when nothing matters as much as it once did, I’ll tell you
something. I recall that my impression at the time you resigned was
that L.G. had dished you good and proper. But I never knew how.

“It may be that Couchman placed the means in his hands.

Perhaps you know more about that than I do. It’s true that L.G.

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335

showered Couchman with munitions contracts, not to mention his
knighthood. You remember L.G.’s attitude to service and reward. It
had a certain Welsh simplicity.

“As for Palfrey, I may have overlooked your request. I forget
now if I forgot or not.” He winked. “Age does that, as you should
know. They were hectic times and I was seeking to re-establish myself after the Dardanelles episode. I daresay I would have known
better than to pursue it. I might even have let Palfrey know that we
didn’t want him to do business with you. If so, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I had once, myself, worried a great
deal. But Churchill was right. With hindsight, these were trifles, the
necessary compromises of a political career.

“I told L.G. about our little lunchtime disagreement at
Gaspard’s—the essentials, anyway. I’m sure that’s why he offered
you Madeira. But it surprised me, I remember. He dropped everything to arrange it. It was a touch panicky—unlike him. To be honest, I thought it was the best thing for you.”

“I think you were right.”

“Then why come back?”

“Because I’m drawn back. Once I would have demanded the
truth. Now, the truth seems to demand me. And then, there’s a matter of the heart.”

“Then follow the heart, Edwin , not the head. Old men are free
to do that.”

So we went and had our tea and strolled round the garden as
evening drew in. He told me how he had paced those lawns during
the 1930s brooding on the Nazi menace and I told him about
Madeira’s little local difficulty in 1931. I stayed for dinner and then
for the night. When I returned to London the following morning,
Churchill and I had made our peace—a separate peace in my war
with history.

But now the time had come which I had foreseen the moment Sellick
had appeared at the quinta, brandishing his proofs of marriage and
paternity, the time to confront him with whom a truce was inconceivable.