Page 147 of The Gathering Storm

Basil preferred to kiss her, and found her ready for love, despite her words. It felt very natural to be back in her bed. He’d have called the experience comfortable, except that the word suggested the love-making was not exciting, which it was. Sex was always exciting to a healthy young man, of course, but now, two years on, it was more than that. It was satisfying in a way he had not expected: it was not something he did, but something they did. Was he becoming a less shallow person? If so, he owed it to her, which was funny, because he could never tell his nearest and dearest the cause of his improvement.

After love, they sat up and lit cigarettes, and talked some more. ‘Do you think it will all end in war?’ she said.

He thought about it seriously. ‘I used to pooh-pooh the idea, but now I can’t see how it can be avoided. If you let a burglar into your house and watch him take your silver without saying anything, he’s not going to thank you politely and go away, is he? He’s going to take everything else in the house. The question is, at what point do you say, “Enough!”, and grab for the poker?’

‘We haven’t reached that point yet,’ she said.

‘No, evidently. But I can’t see this particular burglar stopping until either he’s defeated, or one of his own side murders him.’ She was silent. He went on, ‘There is one other possible defence – make your house impossible to break into.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Make our armed forces so powerful that Mr Hitler decides to leave us alone. But that will take time, given that we’ve never maintained a large standing army. And arms are even harder to get hold of than men – in the final event, you can force the population into uniform, but you can’t just will guns into existence.’

‘So we’re playing for time?’ Gloria said. ‘For how long?’

‘I have no idea,’ Basil said. ‘Mr Chamberlain doesn’t confide in me.’

‘I was thinking, you see, of Anthony. He finishes at Eton in June.’

Basil preferred to forget she had a son; he didn’t like being reminded of how old that son was. ‘They won’t send an eighteen-year-old to the Front,’ he said shortly.

‘No, but a nineteen-year-old they will. They did last time.’ Basil couldn’t deny it. ‘Have you thought what you’ll do, if there is a war?’

He thought of the dinner party, and Lord Culbeath, and Special Services. But that was secret stuff. ‘Oh, I’ll do something in Intelligence, if I get the choice.’

‘You may not,’ Gloria said. ‘You’ll have to go where they send you.’

‘Well, one has to do one’s duty.’

‘Cedric wants to run away to America, and take Anthony with him.’ Cedric was her husband. He was thirty years her senior, and they lived more or less separate lives, he mostly at their house down in Surrey, while Gloria stayed in Town. Anthony spent most of his time when he was not at school with his father in the country. ‘I don’t want him to make Anthony a coward. He says he can’t risk losing him because he’s his only son – but he’s my only son too!’

He said awkwardly, to comfort her, ‘No-one in this country wants war.’ That was not true, he knew: there were always hotheaded young men who couldn’t wait to get out there and biff the enemy – and belligerent old men who couldn’t wait to send them.

‘But you wouldn’t run away, would you? You want to fight?’

‘Well …’ He hesitated. ‘… it’s not exactly that I want to fight. But it would be awfully poor spirited to scuttle off and miss all the fun. Does Anthony want to go?’

‘I don’t know. Cedric won’t let me ask him. But he’s not of age, so if his father takes him away, he has to go.’

‘What about you? Will you go?’

‘Not on your life! I’m staying. If the Germans come, they’ll have to come through me.’

Basil laughed and rolled her into his arms. ‘Wildcat! That’s the spirit!’

‘I think war is going to let a lot of things off a lot of leashes,’ she said, between kisses.

Oliver walked into the House of Lords bar, and raised a hand to Kit.

Kit nodded to him, and said to the barman, ‘Two pink gins, George.’ He brought the drinks to the table where Oliver had settled, and said, ‘Well!’

‘Well!’ said Oliver.

‘A defence pact with Poland. I didn’t see that coming,’ said Kit.

‘Nor did I. It was only two weeks ago the Old Man was saying everything in Europe is serene. I thought he’d do anything rather than precipitate war.’

‘Better a deal with the Devil than a plunge into the fiery pit,’ Kit said.